This topic is for discussing Super Mario Odyssey (for Nintendo Switch).
Speedrunning this game is a good way to learn for people who have a hard time learning (~everyone) and who already like video games.
Single player games are best because you don't have to deal with other people. Other people are complicated and dealing with them is a big issue which distracts from the gameplay.
Single player games are mostly too easy. They don't challenge you enough. Speedrunning solves that problem by giving you a goal to work towards where taking on extra challenges gets you better results.
Mario Odyssey is a popular, modern game (in general and specifically for speedrunning) which is highly accessible (both for regular play and speedrunning). It has video guides for speedrunning, various speedrunners who stream on Twitch, and plenty of walkthroughs for regular play. It can easily be broken up into small parts to learn about one at a time, and you can practice a few minutes at a time and then pause. It's complex enough to have depth without being too complicated. It doesn't have much randomness or AI to deal with. It has some glitches but not a ton, and you don't need to do any until you're a very advanced speedrunner. The any% speedrun is a good length. Those are some reasons it's a good game choice. It's also beneficially if a bunch of philosophy-interested people play the same game so they can discuss it, so don't choose a different game that seems a little more appealing to you, it'd only make sense to play a different game if it was a lot better for you for some reason.
(Mario Odyssey has few downsides. The biggest one is it uses motion controls some. It also takes more work to record videos of console gameplay than Mac or PC gameplay, and you need a Switch.)
By playing Mario Odyssey, you can learn what it's like to get good and something and succeed. You can see how practice works and things that used to be hard become easy. Learn to practice efficiently. Learn to write down notes, to review videos (like other people's speedruns) and get useful help from them, and learn to remember a bunch of information. You can see what correcting errors is like. You can see what getting details right is like and succeed with high quality standards. You can see how to build up your skills. First you learn how to do basic movement. Then you practice until it doesn't take much attention anymore. Then you can learn harder combinations of movement which build on the basic things. Now that the basic things are easy for you, your attention is free to focus on combined sequences.
Speedrunning gives you clear metrics for success and failure, which makes it much easier to learn. Did you reach the location you were trying to jump to or fall down? What does the timer say about what you're doing? One of the main reasons people have trouble learning philosophy, and many other things, is because they don't know when they're doing it right or not. They want to fix their errors, but they don't know which things are errors and which are correct. With speedrunning, you can also compare what you did to videos of what faster runners and figure out specifically how your approach is inferior (so you don't just know that you made an error, you also can get good info about what to do differently).
Overall, doing everything may not be easy, but it's easier than learning philosophy. So if you're having a hard time learning philosophy, like most people, this is an easier place to begin. You can work on your ability to learn, find and fix errors, not get frustrated, be persistent over time, and so on, without the added difficulty of trying to understand hard philosophy ideas at the same time. Practice learning with something easier than philosophy so you aren't doing everything at once. And then, in the future, when you learn philosophy ideas about how to learn, you'll be able apply them to examples from your Mario Odyssey experience. This is something lots of people can do well, it doesn't take a "genius" (philosophy doesn't take a "genius" either but many people think it does).
You have to learn the game before you speedrun it. That's step one. Play it normally first and get used to it. If you start getting bored playing normally, or finish everything, then switch to practicing the speedrun.
Messages (237)
Assumes ability
Video games are not a good surrogate for philosophy for me. I have MS, so my fingers don't always do what I want. I may know precisely where I need to jump to, but not be able to jump there because I can't maneuver the cursor to the appropriate point. Intention tremors make even entering passwords difficult, and that's with no time limits. Even the concept of speedrunning is laughable; the tremors get worse if I'm in a hurry.
I wonder if there is some non-dexterity-critical, non-speed-critical exercise that is easier than learning philosophy but will help me to master needed skills.
#12368 There are many, e.g. learning how to analyze writing, word by word, to know what it means. I'm working on some material about that. But I don't know of great options that don't directly involve other people *and* make it easy to check how well you're doing (like the speedrun timer). When you come up with an interpretation of some text, there's no easy way to check if you're right or not. When you judge that some grammar usage is correct or incorrect, again no easy way to check if you're right.
Here are some options which i don't really recommend, i don't think they're great answers for this:
- find a turn-based video game game (removes speed and dexterity) and aim for a high score. but i don't know what games are good to maximize score in. it'd need to have enough depth, complexity and competition regarding score.
- tool-assisted speed run. people speedrun games one frame at a time with tools that let them back up and redo stuff. no dexterity or speed required, just game knowledge to know what to do.
- learn chess (or another board or card game with good computer opponents) and play against a computer opponent which lets you set the difficulty level, and turn up the difficulty after you can win pretty consistently.
- learn to program. you can get automatic feedback from the compiler (e.g. syntax error). you can run the program and see if it appears to do what you wanted it to do. you can write your own automated tests to help check the program does what you want.
- do math or logic problems which can be computer checked for correctness, or which already have good answers available.
---
I've been thinking about this but don't have a great solution for people besides speedrunning. That's my best answer. The problem is stuff like reading books doesn't give people good enough feedback on how well they're understanding stuff. I've tried to solve that problem with discussion forums, which help but most people don't want to use them. You could try discussing more but many people find that hard for a variety of reasons.
If I come up with a great answer to this problem, I'll share it. I'm trying. The speedrun's timer is hard to match.
#12369 There's also playing 1v1 strategy-based video games, against other humans, which aren't too fast paced, e.g. Hearthstone, and which have a ranking system you can climb as you improve. If your rank is climbing, you're doing better. Hearthstone has too much randomness and the rank system wasn't very good last time I checked (they mostly reset your rank every month, so getting a high rank requires playing a lot of hours instead of building up to it over time). Magic the Gathering is more complicated game with better game design and more skill involved. still a lot of luck. harder to get into, less accessible, pretty expensive (i don't know how much you have to spend on Hearthstone nowadays if you don't spend a ton of hours earning cards, but i'm pretty sure MtG is worse). a lot of board games and card games aren't 1v1 which causes a lot of problems, but chess and go are options with plenty of competition available online and which can be played at a slow pace. they're big and hard projects though, kinda daunting, and not that appealing for most people (way less popular than Mario), and basically one is a confused beginner for hundreds of hours with chess or go, at least, and most players never actually get very good.
The reason I'm focusing on *games* this much is they have clear rules, both about actions allowed and about what is success or failure, winning or losing. and the game world is much smaller and easier to master than the real world.
Young children learn motor skills and get feedback from reality about things like whether they moved an object or it didn't move as intended, whether they walked to a location or fell down and didn't get there, and lots of other pretty direct, straightforward results. that's pretty good feedback on whether you're succeeding or not. you could try to do something kinda similar as an adult with, say, shooting a gun at a target (or throwing a frisbee at a target, maybe playing frisbee golf, or regular golf). you'd get good feedback on how well you aimed. but there are lots of complications like gun quality and sights quality. and you kinda have to set your own goals. and it's a bit too simple of an activity in some ways, not enough strategy involved. hunting has more complexity and strategy, but less clear outcomes – you can go for days and not see the animal you're looking for, then miss because you only saw it at a distance and never got a good shot. and you have to live in the right place or travel. and you have to be in physical condition to do outdoors stuff like that, and be happy to. video games let you quickly reset and retry things, they make practicing convenient, whereas there's no way to spend an hour practicing shooting the same rabbit over and over and get hundreds of tries.
I liked this video about speedrunning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV7cAQBsMjo
#12369
>The problem is stuff like reading books doesn't give people good enough feedback on how well they're understanding stuff. I've tried to solve that problem with discussion forums, which help but most people don't want to use them.
Curi, would you be willing to do a "reading group discussion" here on OPAR ("Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand")? One chapter per week for example.
That could get a group of people to read the same content and discuss and learn from it in a better way.
You could guide us in advance - e.g. asking a question about the next chapter, or give pointers that are beneficial to learning new material.
You are welcome to try to organize a reading group. I think if people aren't already reading and analyzing texts on their own initiative and schedule, making it a collaboration won't fix the problem.
If you say something substantive about OPAR, or have a question, many FI regulars could respond to you without having joined any group or having already read that chapter that week. Either they'd already have comments on the issue offhand or could quickly review specific, relevant passages (it's pretty common for the good posters to review book pages while writing a post, and to find those book pages themselves without being told).
For many years, I've encouraged people to read and discuss books, and I've explained how and why, and I've been available to answer questions and discuss a wide variety of books. People largely aren't interested.
Some people will fake interest due to a "reading group" in order to try to fit in with a social group. Some people think being pressured to read a chapter every week by other people will solve their motivation problems (the lack of their own motor). Or they want a teacher to tell them what to do – which is a role I don't want.
#12389
>You are welcome to try to organize a reading group. I think if people aren't already reading and analyzing texts on their own initiative and schedule, making it a collaboration won't fix the problem.
>If you say something substantive about OPAR, or have a question, many FI regulars could respond to you without having joined any group or having already read that chapter that week. Either they'd already have comments on the issue offhand or could quickly review specific, relevant passages (it's pretty common for the good posters to review book pages while writing a post, and to find those book pages themselves without being told).
My reason for proposing doing it in group format is to raise and explore more questions. I might for example have two major questions on a particular chapter and someone else two different questions. Even though other people's questions aren't my primary questions they could turn out to be crucial for my understanding of the content better.
I am yet to start reading OPAR, but your suggestion of posting questions in the FI discussion group (if I understood you correctly) would be the second best thing (lacking the benefit of other people's questions).
Maybe someone else joins in once I start though - who knows.
>For many years, I've encouraged people to read and discuss books, and I've explained how and why, and I've been available to answer questions and discuss a wide variety of books. People largely aren't interested.
Yes, I know. Your arguments on the **What Books Should You Read?** (https://fallibleideas.com/books) have convinced me that there are far superior ways to learn from books than the way I'm used to: purely reading them. I'd rather improve than continue as before.
>*It’s very easy to misunderstand books you read. And a misunderstanding on page 2 can lead to a further misunderstanding on page 5 which causes another misunderstanding on page 8. You should expect to form over 100 misunderstandings per book-about-ideas you read alone. To do better, discuss books as you read them (don’t wait until the end of the book). Join the Fallible Ideas discussion group and share what you’re learning. The helpful membership has people who already understand these books and can offer corrections.*
Reading Groups
#12391 Posting to the FI forum or curi forum doesn't really matter. Either is fine. The regular FI posters read the curi forum if interested.
> My reason for proposing doing it in group format is to raise and explore more questions. I might for example have two major questions on a particular chapter and someone else two different questions.
If someone else has any questions, I would expect them to *already have posted those questions* in the past. You can find them in the archives. Their reading of OPAR doesn't need to be time-synchronized with yours. If they read OPAR 2 or 20 years before you, or 2 or 20 years after, neither of you should wait for the other person. And whoever goes second can benefit from what the person who went first already said. (And whoever goes first can benefit from the comments of whoever goes second, if the first person is still alive and interested in ideas.)
Similarly, if someone wanted to read OPAR (and preferred it over all alternative books), in general they already would have, rather than doing it right now to match your schedule. Or if they will read it but haven't yet gotten to it, in general they will get to it at some random time in the future which doesn't match when you read it. While there are some upsides to synchronized reading, they generally aren't significant enough to get first-handed people to make major scheduling changes (e.g. read a book a year or more earlier or later).
Also, the pace people read books at varies. If I were going to reread OPAR right now, I might finish the whole book in a week, while you take 12 weeks. I read *Time Will Run Back* by Hazlitt yesterday, all in one day. My personal reading record for one day is 2.5 times the number of words in OPAR.
Anyway, think of it like the OPAR book club *already started* in 1994 (when this online discussion community first started with the TCS email list on AOL) and people can contribute more to it at any time. The reading group was opened at that time, available to be discussed. The group for every other book was also opened then (except the books that were published after that like BoI). Then, judging by a quick search, it was in 2011 that people made the first contributions to OPAR book club. Now dozens of contributions have accumulated. It'd be hard to get more with a fresh book club, that starts next week, even if people wanted to join it. And some people are simultaneously available to discuss OPAR and hundreds of other books at any time, and have been for years – you can think of them as members of many book clubs at once because they are prepared to discuss those books (even though they won't start a full rereading right now and try to time it along with you, which they don't actually need to do in order to discuss).
If you post about OPAR and the posts interest people, they may want to read the book (if they haven't) to join the discussion, or they may reread some passages in order to reply better. I think those are better approaches than trying to set up a scheduled reading group.
#12393 Valid points. Thanks. I'll bring my upcoming questions on OPAR (and other books) to the Open Discussion forum on curi forum.
Here's the first post of Nikola's OPAR reading, so that people can see what came of the reading group discussion above:
http://curi.us/1857-open-thread-objectivism-discussion#c12418
I tried playing Super Mario Odyssey. I know someone who already had the game and was willing to help me get started using their game.
I hadn't played this kind of game before although I had seen other people play similar games in the past. I had to be shown how to turn on the Switch, what the buttons on the controller were, etc.
I played for about 40 minutes and got through the first level. I beat the first boss by just pressing random buttons until it died. If I play again I might try the first level again and practice some basic things some more, like running and jumping.
I did experience some motion sickness. I was playing on a giant screen. Maybe I'd feel better playing on a smaller screen.
I also felt some pain in my left shoulder in the same spot that I've had trouble with before from other kinds of video games. Maybe that could be helped by holding the controller in a different position or something.
Race in Lake kingdom
I watched this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02sGSuDX_n0
I already got first place without watching any videos. I got 1:21.31 that way.
the video shows a much faster way. it involves lots of cap jumps. it gets 24 seconds.
I had to rewatch part of this video on how to do arial cap jumps. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7HZT2lmL04
Then I had to rewatch the first part of the race video. I successfully combined a triple jump (which gives the most height) and a cap jump to get past the first hard part (getting up to a tall cliff).
Then I died and had to restart the race. This time I was able to successfully combine a roll, a long jump, a triple-jump, and a cap jump, in that order, in order to get from the start of the race to the top of the cliff.
Next steps: more of the lake kingdom race
GISTE
#12431
> Then I had to rewatch the first part of the race video. I successfully combined a triple jump (which gives the most height) and a cap jump to get past the first hard part (getting up to a tall cliff).
> Then I died and had to restart the race. This time I was able to successfully combine a roll, a long jump, a triple-jump, and a cap jump, in that order, in order to get from the start of the race to the top of the cliff.
I tried to do this again. I tried about 25 times before I got on the cliff. I tried 10 more times and got on there once.
so then I stopped doing that and tried only to do cap jumps for a while. just over and over again in a circle. I was able to get it right 3 out of 4 times. I did it so much that my hand muscles started hurting. so I took a break.
Race in Lake kingdom - part 3
#12440
this time I started by practicing arial cap jumps in a circle. I figured out something about how I press X and Y with my thumb. what I do now is this:
at the height of a jump, throw cappy and hold it (press and hold X). this keeps cappy stationary, ready for Mario to launch off of cappy.
after having thrown cappy, press and hold ZL. this initiates a ground pound. so Mario does a tumble. but before he starts moving downward, after Mario has done his full tumble in the air, press Y, but don't remove thumb from X (so for a moment I'm pressing X and Y). then continue holding on Y as Mario lands on cappy and jumps off of it. I can get another dive out of this by removing my thumb from X and pressing/holding it again and then pressing Y too.
now I'm doing arial cap jumps about 9 out of 10 times.
so then I tried to get back on the cliff (the first part of the race). I did a lot better this time. I'm getting it right 50% of the time. mostly what's stopping me is getting Mario at a certain point by the end of his triple jump. often times I'm either too close to the ledge, so I crash into the cliff during my arial cap jump, or I'm too far from the ledge, so my arial cap jump doesn't get me close enough to the ledge.
I went ahead to the next hard part. I gotta do a triple jump and arial cap jump. this one seems harder than the first one.
Next steps: practice the first 2 hard parts of lake kingdom race
using both cap buttons isn't necessary. try it both ways and see what you prefer (and try to find out what speedrunners do – if they all do it the same way, do that. if they do a variety then you can pick). the cap stays out for a certain amount of time without holding the cap button. if you let go and repress (and then hold) the button during that time, it stays out. you can dive that way using one cap button. that's what i do. you can test how that works on the ground to see when the cap button has to be held for the cap to stay out.
after you do the first cap jump, you can dive without throwing your cap a second time. throwing the cap again, even though you won't jump on it, is helpful if you need to change directions.
also triple jump is only a tiny bit higher than alternatives. in most cases, you can use a different jump to make it easier. try it with every type of jump and compare.
Race in Lake kingdom - part 4
#12450
I tried the single cap-button way and yeah it's better.
this session I got past the 2nd hard part of the race. I did a triple jump, a cap jump, then threw cappy and dived.
then I tried to get past both hard parts together. I did this 3 times. on the 3rd time I got 57.36 seconds. it should have been more like 24 seconds but I messed up a few times at the 2nd hard part.
Next steps: try to get past both hard parts under ~30 seconds.
Race in Lake kingdom - part 5
#12455
I practiced some cap jumps first. Then I did the full race.
I got 49.74.
Then 34.79.
Then 31.29.
Then 31.95.
There were lots of tries in between where I quit because I messed up so much that I wasn't going to beat my PR.
I think this is good enough to move on to other stuff. I could come back to the race later when I'm better.
Race in Lake kingdom - part 6/7
#12472
last night I was gonna move on to other stuff but when it was time to do Mario again, I wanted to see what I could do in the race.
I did about 30 or 45 minutes of trying. I was a little bit better or roughly the same during the first half of it. I got a new PR of 31.22sec. then I noticed I was getting worse. I felt my hand muscles getting tired. (I think I press on the controllers too hard. Sleepy told me a while ago that I press on the iPad too hard too.)
Today I tried again. I was surprised to find out that on my first try, I got 34.28. On all previous sessions, it took a few tries before I could even complete the race.
Moons in Wooded kingdom moons - part 1
I got these by following a tutorial [1]:
- 6. BACK WAY UP THE MOUNTAIN
- 10. ATOP A TALL TREE
I got these as I noticed them while I was working on the moons above:
- Timer challenge 1
- Glowing in the deep woods
- Exploring for treasure
- Beneath the roots of the moving tree
- Deep woods treasure trap
[1] https://www.polygon.com/super-mario-odyssey-guide-walkthrough/2017/11/3/16581820/wooded-kingdom-power-moon-locations-names#UaICWP
#12483
Are you going to try to not press so hard?
Moons in Wooded kingdom - part 2
#12484
Using the same tutorial [1] I got these moons:
- 11. TUCKED AWAY INSIDE A TUNNEL. I couldn’t find this one by the description. I had to lookup a video. And then I had to find a seed to grow the ladder-vine. I had a pretty good idea of where to find it. Done.
- 13. THE NUT ‘ROUND THE CORNER
- 14. CLIMB THE CLIFF TO GET THE NUT
- 15. THE NUT IN THE RED MAZE. I had to watch a video to find out where the red maze is. I also saw some moon shards, so I got all 5 and got a moon for it.
- 16. THE NUT AT THE DEAD END. I had to watch 2 videos (the first didn’t show the general area of where to go).
- 17. CRACKED NUT ON A CRUMBLING TOWER
- 18. THE NUT THAT GREW ON THE TALL FENCE. I had to watch a video for this again to find where to go.
- 19. FIRE IN THE CAVE
- 20. HEY OUT THERE, CAPTAIN TOAD!
- 22. INSIDE THE ROCK IN THE FOREST
- 26. SPINNING-PLATFORMS TREASURE
- 27. MAKE THE SECRET FLOWER FIELD BLOOM
- 28. ROLLING ROCK IN THE DEEP WOODS
These moons I found while getting the ones above:
- Taking Notes: Stretching
- Taking Notes: on top of the wall
- High up on a rock wall
[1] https://www.polygon.com/super-mario-odyssey-guide-walkthrough/2017/11/3/16581820/wooded-kingdom-power-moon-locations-names#UaICWP
Is it Super Mario Odyssey in particular that you recommend as a guide to problem solving, because of some way it's designed?
Do you have other recommendations? (perhaps an online quick access?)
#12491 See the blog post paragraph that says "Those are some reasons it's a good game choice."
I don't know any good browser game speedruns if that's what you mean. You can look for yourself to find a speed game which has competition and guides.
You don't say what the problem is. If it's money but you have a PC, then you can get an n64 emulator and play Mario 64, which is great too.
Super Mario Odyssey's Biggest Barrier Broken!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnwY2bqqRbo
If you can't finish Mario Odyssey in under 2 hours, the issue is knowledge not physical dexterity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEFaNhe2m-0
Smallant put the left joycon in his right hand, and vice versa, and finished the game in under 2 hours. First try, no getting used to the controls first.
Trying not to press hard
#12485
> Are you going to try to not press so hard?
Yes
I tried moving around in various ways in the game without any other goal (no trying to get moons or anything else, just moving around). I tried to only pay attention to how hard I'm pressing on the buttons. I noticed that I'm not pressing very hard.
Now I guess I was only pressing hard while I was repeatedly trying to do a series of moves that I'm not accustomed to.
Moons in Wooded kingdom - part 3
Using this tutorial [1] I got these moons:
- 30. PAST THE PECULIAR PIPES
- 32. THE HARD ROCK IN DEEP WOODS
- 33. A TREASURE MADE OF COINS
- 39. FLOODING PIPEWAY
- 40. FLOOD PIPEWAY CEILING SECRET
- 42. NUT HIDDEN IN THE FOG
I got these moons on my own as I was getting the above moons:
- By the babbling brook in the woods
[1] https://www.polygon.com/super-mario-odyssey-guide-walkthrough/2017/11/3/16581820/wooded-kingdom-power-moon-locations-names#UaICWP
Moons in Wooded kingdom - part 4
Using this tutorial [1] I got these moons:
- 43. FLOWER ROAD RUN
- 44. FLOWER ROAD REACH
- 45. ELEVATOR ESCALATION
- 46. ELEVATOR BLIND SPOT
- 47. WALKING ON CLOUDS
- 48. ABOVE THE CLOUDS
I notice that many of the moons could be gotten along the same path as other ones. I could try looking ahead in the tutorial so see if that’s the case, and then try to get both moons in one shot.
[1] https://www.polygon.com/super-mario-odyssey-guide-walkthrough/2017/11/3/16581820/wooded-kingdom-power-moon-locations-names#UaICWP
Moons in Wooded kingdom - part 5
Using this tutorial again[1] I got these moons:
49. SECRET PATH TO THE STEAM GARDENS. For this one I used a video. [2]
50. FOUND WITH WOODED KINGDOM ART
51. SWING AROUND SECRET FLOWER FIELD
52. JAMMIN’ IN THE WOODED KINGDOM
[1] https://www.polygon.com/super-mario-odyssey-guide-walkthrough/2017/11/3/16581820/wooded-kingdom-power-moon-locations-names#szahGZ
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4Wx2SzONKM
Moons in Wooded kingdom - part 6
I did two sessions without using a tutorial. Instead I tried exploring near the X’s on the map. I explored near all of the X’s. I only got 3 moons (out of 18) though.
I would have gotten these moons quicker using a tutorial but it was more fun trying to get them on my own.
Now I’m going back to the tutorial[1]. I got these moons:
53. WOODED KINGDOM REGULAR CUP
56. LOST IN THE TALL TREES
59. THE NUT IN THE ROBOT STOREROOM
61. THE NUT UNDER THE OBSERVATION DECK
62. BIRD TRAVELING THE FOREST
64. HOT, HOT, HOT FROM THE CAMPFIRE
[1] https://www.polygon.com/super-mario-odyssey-guide-walkthrough/2017/11/3/16581820/wooded-kingdom-power-moon-locations-names#szahGZ
Moons in Wooded kingdom - part 7
I used the same tutorial to get these moons [1]:
65. WOODED KINGDOM TIMER CHALLENGE 3
70. I MET AN UPROOT!
[1] https://www.polygon.com/super-mario-odyssey-guide-walkthrough/2017/11/3/16581820/wooded-kingdom-power-moon-locations-names#szahGZ
I watched a video [2] for the master cup race. I watched the video in full then tried to do the race using the one shortcut that I learned from the video. I completed the race using the shortcut in just 1 try. I got under 41 seconds, but that wasn’t enough to get first place. On my second try, I messed up a bit early on and restarted the race. On my third try, I did everything right and got first place with 36.86 seconds.
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDIVnrZ4nJg
Moons in Wooded kingdom - part 8
I used videos to get the rest of moons from the Wooded kingdom:
71. INVISIBLE ROAD: DANGER!
72. INVISIBLE ROAD: HIDDEN ROOM
73. HERDING SHEEP ABOVE THE FOREST FOG
76. BELOW BREAKDOWN ROAD
Moons in Cloud Kingdom
Only a few moons to get here.
I wanted to get the moons without any help. I got all but 2 of them without help. 1 of them I couldn’t find anywhere, despite the X on the map. It involved paying attention to the controller vibrating in order to know where to ground pound. For the 2nd one, I wanted a picture as a reference to do the picture matching game.
Done.
Moons in Lost kingdom - part 1
I got 6 moons so far without any tutorials/videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMX0uQpDsYU
This video is about speedrunning a particular level of Doom II. It gives you an idea of how much can be optimized about moving around without even having a jump button.
Moons in Lost kingdom - part 2
I did 3 more sessions where I tried to get as many moons as I could without help from tutorials/videos. I got 18 moons this way. I spent a lot of time trying to brainstorm ways to reach moons that I couldn't reach without some technique that I'd never used before.
I have 5 moons left to get. 4 of them are not marked on the map with X's. One of them is.
2 of these moons were the regular race and the master cup race.
I had tons of trouble just finishing the race. I died tons of times. I initially got a time of 1:30ish. That got me 2nd place on the regular cup.
I noticed 2 short cuts that require some arial cap jumps. The 1st cap jump saves a few seconds and the 2nd cap jump saves twice as much. So I decided to only do the 2nd short cut (increasing my chances of success vs trying both shortcuts in the same run).
Using only the 2nd short cut, I got a time of 1:00.36. That got me 1st place in the regular cup. 2 runs later I got a time of 59.65, which gave me 1st place in the master cup.
#12571 If you talk to all the characters – especially look near your ship – you will find two who can give you hints to help find moons.
Moons in Lost kingdom - part 3
I used a tutorial[1] to get help on moon 12 involving a butterfly. The advice wasn't new to me. It said to walk slowly near the butterfly then throw Cappy at it. I did that previously and it didn't work. It worked this time though. Maybe I wasn't going slow enough before.
I also got moons 14, and 22, 23.
[1] https://www.polygon.com/super-mario-odyssey-guide-walkthrough/2017/11/1/16583738/lost-kingdom-power-moon-locations-find-names#nl0JV0
Moons in Metro kingdom - part 1
I did 2 sessions where I didn't use the help of tutorials/videos. I did use 2 hints from Hint Toad. I got 32 moons this way.
2 of the moons were for getting first place in the regular cup and master cup races. It took only a few tries before completing the race. A couple more tries later I got 36 seconds, which got me 1st place in the regular cup. Then a couple tries later I got 34.18 seconds, which got me 1st place in the master cup. I was using arial cap jumps on my second try of the race. I didn't try it before that because I was only trying to figure out where I'm supposed to go. The arial cap jumps allowed for some short cuts. It was really easy to figure out.
I still have 28 moons left to get, 5 of them are marked with X's on the map.
I have a lead on a moon but it's not enough. I need to find a purse and give it to the mayor. But I don't know where the purse is.
I've spoken to everyone that can be spoken to, as far as I know.
I've gone everywhere on the map, as far as I know.
Next steps: use tutorials/videos to get the rest of the moons in Metro
Moons in the Metro kingdom - part 2
I used tutorials/videos to get these moons:
16. LEFT AT THE CAFE? [1]
17. CAUGHT HOPPING ON A BUILDING! [1]
21. CITY GARDENING: BUILDING PLANTER [1]
26. BENCH FRIENDS [1]
34. CITY HALL LOST & FOUND [2]
35. SEWER TREASURE [3]
On the way I got a moon on my own.
I tried getting moon 30. It requires doing 100 consecutive jump-ropes. I got 47 so far.
[1] https://www.polygon.com/super-mario-odyssey-guide-walkthrough/2017/11/2/16591640/metro-kingdom-all-power-moon-locations-find-names
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyG-OflXcJU
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-CGBqRI-0M
Moons in the Metro kingdom - part 3
I used tutorials/videos to get these moons:
36. CELEBRATING IN THE STREETS! [1]
41. MOON SHARDS UNDER SIEGE [1]
42. SHARPSHOOTING UNDER SIEGE [2]
49. MOTOR SCOOTER: ESCAPE! [1]
54. BIRD TRAVELING IN THE CITY [1]
57. A REQUEST FROM THE MAYOR [1]
58. JAMMIN’ IN THE METRO KINGDOM [1]
60. FREE PARKING: LEAP OF FAITH [1]
62. HAT-AND-SEEK: IN THE CITY [1]
63. POWERING UP THE POWER PLANT [1]
64. UP ON THE BIG SCREEN [1]
65. DOWN INSIDE THE BIG SCREEN [1]
72. FOUND IN THE PARK! GOOD DOG! [1]
[1] https://www.polygon.com/super-mario-odyssey-guide-walkthrough/2017/11/2/16591640/metro-kingdom-all-power-moon-locations-find-names
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFZZlw4DnDc
How do I know when I have "learnt philosophy"?
Lake race again
I didn't finish getting the moons in Metro kingdom. Instead I wanted to see if I was significantly better for the Lake race.
I noticed that I did a lot better in the Metro and Lost races than compared to previous races and I wanted to see if that would reflect in a much better PR for the Lake race.
I was wrong. I had just as much trouble as the last time I did the Lake race. I did get a new PR but it was not significantly better (only a small fraction of a second improvement).
Moons in Snow kingdom
For this session I didn’t use the help of tutorials/videos. I got 34 moons. I did use 3 hints from the Hint Toad that led to getting moons. There were some more hints from Hint Toad that didn’t help.
On the Koopa Freerunning race, I completed the race on the first try (cuz it’s easy). I got 1st place (regular cup) on my 2nd try with 31.05 seconds. I did arial cap jumps for much of the race. Then on the master cup, I restarted a few times because I noticed that I was 2nd place already. So I did a run just to watch the 1st place guy. I noticed that he used a Cheep Cheep to swim. So I started doing that. It took a few tries and I got 1st place with 26.38 seconds.
More moons in Snow kingdom
I've done many more sessions to get moons in Snow kingdom without tutorials/videos. I got 56 moons so far.
There are a few moons that I know about but haven't gotten yet. I got all the hints from the Hint Toad, but not all of them were useful.
I haven't beaten the master cup race, despite tons of tries.
I haven't tried getting 100 volleys in the volley ball game. I did get 15 volleys to get the first moon of the two moons for playing this game.
I haven't gotten the moon for playing with the dog. I played with him on 4 different occasions, each time playing catch a few times. As I understand it, I'm just supposed to play catch with him a bunch (according to a tutorial I read about the same kinda thing in previous kingdoms).
There is a moon involving hint art. I haven't figured that out yet. The hint art looks like the word "keep" with a moon above it.
I'm going to move on to the next kingdom to get moons on my own before going back to tutorials/videos.
Did you talk with the parrot ?
Parrot
#12602
yep I talked to the parrot many times. I still need to talk to him again after I get some of the moons. as far as I can see, he won't give new hints until you've gotten some of the moons for the hints he already gave.
Correction
#12601
correction: this post was about the Seaside kingdom.
I think I wrote Snow kingdom partly because I was started playing in that kingdom to get 3 more moons (without tutorials/videos) before starting on the Seaside kingdom.
Moons in Luncheon kingdom
I got 45 moons so far without tutorials/videos. I'm not done trying though.
Regarding the koopa race:
I died tons in the initial runs. I got the hang of it after I stopped trying to jump like the rest of the computer players and instead did lots of arial cap jumps so I could easily clear the gaps between the platforms that we had to cross.
When I completed the race the first time, I got 1st place (regular cup). Apparently I used a shortcut unknowingly. I just went to the location of the beacon in the way that I remembered earlier while exploring a particular area -- and that was a shortcut.
The shortcut was good enough to get me first place in the master cup too (after a few deaths that is).
---
The only remaining moons are 32, 47, 49, 52, and 53.
One of them involves being a mechanic. dunno what's up with that. (***Don't give me the answer.***)
One of them maybe involves diving off of the big pot at the top of the volcano.
One of them involves a secret path to the volcano.
Two of them I have no information about besides their location on the map.
One of those 2 involves hint art (moon 49). It shows some underwater platforms that look like they're from the Seaside kingdom.
And the last one is located right on top of the koopa race icon. There is a door there that leads to a passageway. I’ve explored there 2 times now. I don’t see it.
Also I recall talking to one of the hat characters who said that I should find a man wearing the hat's friend (also a hat). I haven't found him yet. And I don't know if finding this hat character will get me a moon or not. None of the moons I mentioned above seem related to it.
> I got 45 moons so far without tutorials/videos. I'm not done trying though.
It seems like you're improving compared to when you started playing.
Question about OP
> (Mario Odyssey has few downsides. The biggest one is it uses motion controls some. It also takes more work to record videos of console gameplay than Mac or PC gameplay, and you need a Switch.)
why is "uses motion controls some" a downside?
motion controls are hard to control, and generally finicky and annoying. the technology doesn't work well enough and it's much harder to get a consistent result. pressing a button you either press it or you don't. moving a joystick a particular way is harder but manageable (especially with older controllers that have notches for the 8 main angles). motion controls often just don't do what you want very well, e.g. sometimes it thinks you shook the controller when you wanted a spin throw, or vice versa.
I noticed a methodology change in me
I noticed a methodology change in me since I've been playing this game.
today I was trying to get a particular moon and I kept dying at a particular point along the path. I remember thinking "if I die one more time, I'll move on to something else". but I didn't want to do that again. that's what I did a lot in the beginning of playing this game. I'd give up getting a particular moon to move on to getting other moons, planning to come back it later. But this time (this is not the first, but it is new compared to how I was playing the game initially), instead of quitting and moving on to other moons, I decided, "I'll keep trying until I get it.. no giving up." I thought that doing it now is better than doing it later because right now my memory of the pathway to the particular moon is best (later I'll forget some stuff). (I also thought that I should practice repeatedly trying instead of giving up.) And then 1 more try later, I got the moon. So if I had done in this case what I was doing before, I wouldn't have gotten the moon (even though just 1 more try would have gotten it).
Getting better at the game
#12610
Yes. A lot. See my previous post about one thing I got better at (#12613). btw I wrote that before seeing your message.
One change in me is this. Now when I go to a kingdom to get all the moons, I start by exploring everywhere on the map (while getting some moons that I notice along the way), mainly just to explore the map. I want to have a good idea of where everything is, where things are in relation to other things, how I can move from one points of the map to another. Before, I did not explore much.
So I do the exploration phase and then get all the moons I can, save a few that I have no leads on, before doing the koopa races. I've noticed that the races are easier when I already have a very good idea of how to move around the map. An example of this happened while doing the Luncheon race, which I posted about above (#12609). I used a short cut but I didn't know it was a shortcut. It was just the way I knew how to go because of my earlier exploration of the map.
Getting better
#12613
regarding my ability to control the Mario character...
I'm much better.
The races are getting easier.
I almost never fail doing arial cap jumps now and I had tons of trouble with it before. I did many sessions focussed on practicing arial cap jumps.
I can now do wall jumps followed by arial cap jumps, allowing me to get on top of a plateau. (Later I'll need to precede the wall jump with an arial cap jump to cross a big distance.)
Getting more moons without tutorials/videos
#12609
I got 3 more moons in the luncheon kingdom, leaving only 2 to get: the secret path to the volcano (moon 47) and the hint art (49).
I went to the Ruined kingdom and got a few moons, leaving 3 left to get. I have no more leads. I got all the hints from the Hint Toad. There is no parrot like in the other kingdoms.
I went to the Bowser kingdom. I've gotten a bunch of moons so far. I also got a moon for the Seaside kingdom. I found a painting portal that took me to that kingdom. I got moon 49, secret to seaside kingdom.
Race in Bowser kingdom
I'm done with the exploration phase and almost done with getting all the moons in this kingdom. So it was time for the race.
I didn't die at all, even though there were plenty of opportunities to die. On my first run I just followed the other characters to see where they went. On my second run, I got 2nd place. On my 3rd run, I got 1st place for the regular cup. On my 4th run, I got 1st place for the master cup.
I had less trouble with this race than any other race so far.
I used a lot of arial cap jumps. Many parts of the race involved going down from above while also requiring that you cover some horizontal distance too. These were ideal situations for arial cap jumps.
PS. 7 moons left to get in this kingdom.
Got more moons in Bowser and Moon kingdoms
I got 5 more moons and I only have 2 moons left to get. The secret path to bowser's castle (moon 43) and the hint art one (moon 45).
I went to the Moon kingdom and got all but 4 moons.
One is the dog again.
One is hint art.
One involving flying to a chest. I explored the area a bunch. There are 2 flying characters I could take control of. AFAIK I explored everywhere using those 2 characters. I haven't seen a chest in those areas.
And there's one that I have no hints about besides its location on the map. It's in the same area as the above mentioned moon.
PS. The Moon kingdom race was easy.
Getting the hint art moons
I went back to metro kingdom and got a few more moons. I used the parrot to get some hints. I only have 2 left to get. one is for jump-roping 100 times and one is for the hint art.
The hint art shows an area in the lake kingdom. So I went there and explored a bit. I noticed that the hint art shows 2 floors and a few pillars in a circle on the top floor. So I went searching for areas like that. It was easy to find.
I moved on to the Snow kingdom to get the hint art moon there. I got 2 more moons there, using the parrot's hints. The hint art shows the lost kingdom, so I went there. I found it.
I moved on to the Seaside kingdom. Hmm. That's the one with the word keep and a purple moon above it. I don't get it what it's saying.
To be continued...
I don't have 100 volleyball and I'm missing several hint art. Offhand I don't recall being missing anything else. I didn't figure out some of the hint art clues, although I haven't tried very much.
Seaside race, master cup
I went back to the seaside race because I didn't get 1st place in the master cup.
I practiced doing parts of the race that I was having trouble with.
for example, I often crashed at the end of using flowers. so instead of doing the race I practiced picking up flowers and stopping where I wanted to stop. I figured out that I can do a jump and then immediately ground pound.
I also varied the exact route I took thru the race.
with these improvements I got a new PR, but not 1st place.
I don't like the first part of the race where I have to repeatedly pressing B for a while to get out of the water. after a few races my hand gets tired and I can't do the race anymore.
the rest of the game doesn't require repeatedly pressing the same button much so I don't think it's important.
#12687
1) if it's like mario 64, you need to press swim button with the correct timing, using a rhythm, not as fast as possible.
2) https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/200275-super-mario-odyssey/75964857
#12688
#12688
re 1), in this case it's not about rhythm. you just need to do it fast enough to maintain full speed. any faster pressing won't make you go faster.
re 2), that's about swimming horizontally rather than vertically (which is what I was talking about in the first part of the seaside race). about swimming horizontally, I had seen (either in an article or a video) that you should press ZL and Y at the same time to get a horizontal boost. that doesn't work well for me. I instead press ZL (which starts a ground pound), then hit Y (which boosts me forward). and you have to wait until the boost is completely done before trying ZL again, otherwise something else happens.
#12687
I watched a world record video on the seaside koopa race. I saw 2 short cuts. the 1st shortcut involved getting a Cheep Cheep, which got rid of the necessity to repeatedly press Y to swim up with the regular Mario character. the 2nd shortcut involved using the springy things to launch me up the plateau where the finish line is. I got around 43 seconds, which is much shorter than what's needed for 1st place master cup.
#12697
I told Sleepy about the world record video I watched and the short cuts it gave. she wanted to see it. I showed her and got 36 second.
then we decided to keep trying to improve our PRs on the race. she'd keep trying until she beat my PR, then I'd keep trying till I beat hers, and so on.
she got 31 seconds after a couple tries.
then I got 28.56 after a bunch of tries (I restarted a lot cuz it's hard to get the Cheep Cheep cuz of the weird camera angle.)
the world record I watched (which could be an old world record) got 22.59 sec.
optimizing seaside race
#12697
I watched a previous WR video [1] and noticed another short cut. It seems the player starts out the race turning left and then throwing out Cappy (by shaking both controllers) to get the Cheep Cheep (before I was just swimming to the cheep cheep to get closer and then throwing out cappy to capture it).
I tried to do this but the Cheep Cheep is too far away. I watched the video again and noticed that the camera angle is moving too. So I tried starting out the race by using the left joystick to move 10 degrees to the right of left and using the right joystick to put the camera in the same direction, then throw out cappy. then when cappy is just under the Cheep Cheep, shake the controllers again to grab the Cheep Cheep.
but when I try this, cappy does not grab the Cheep Cheep. it seems my cappy is not close enough. I'm not sure what's going on. if I try to delay throwing out cappy until I've moved to the left a bit, it seems to take much longer than compared to what I see in the video.
[1] https://twitter.com/HamSam03/status/981775980548075520
#12708
I tried this a bunch more times and finally got it right. Not sure what was different this time and I don't think I could do this consistently at all.
I messed up a bit later in the race but I still got a PR of under 28 seconds. The part I messed up on is where I launch from the springy thing to get on top of the plateau. I'm supposed to do a dive into the finish line rather than touching the plateau first and then moving to the finish line. I touched the plateau because I was too close to it when I launched from the springy thing.
Checking out a any% speed run
I watched the 1st part of the WR any% speedrun [1], through mushroom and cap kingdom.
He does tons of things I don't know how to do (either at all or not well).
The first thing seems to be the spin, then ground pound, then roll.
I've never done it before. I'm able to do this now but it's slow. I do the spin and then ground pound, but it seems I'm doing the ground pound to slow because I end up getting a ton of height during the spin. The WR video shows the ground pound happening before he gets any or much height at all from the spin.
I tried a few more times and I can do it a bit faster now but it still seems way slower than the video. I still get some height from the spin before I do the ground pound.
I also don't seem to be getting a spin to happen fast. (I'm not new to the spin. I've used it some before and I've even tried to optimize my ability to get a spin to happen quickly/consistently.
[1] https://www.speedrun.com/smo/run/y6l7w56y
spin, ground pound, roll
#12711
I can do this a bit better now. Much quicker. I don't get much height after the spin before getting the ground pound to happen. I also get the spin to happen more consistently.
#12712
I practiced the spin-jump-groundpound-roll a bunch, for 2 more sessions.
in the earlier session, I got lucky and did one of these very fast (it looked just like in the WR video). I got like zero height after the spin-jump-groundpound before I was able to get the roll to happen. I call it lucky because most of the time I failed to get it done at all, and for the remaining, I got it done but really slowly (where I get a lot of height from the jump before ground pounding).
in the latest session, I didn't get that lucky but I was more consistent in getting them to happen and on average i got them done quicker.
All five Mario 64 speedrun world records were recently beaten/improved:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4UKGbdMJCI
GISTE, as explained in smallant's movement video, you can spin the joystick during a cutscene when you can't control mario (e.g. during the countdown when a koopa race is about to start). This lets you do a basically instant spark roll at the start of a race (spin before race starts, then jump, groundpound, roll). Without the spin, you can't groundpound until you're higher off the ground.
Not sure if you realized that. But yeah you should practice spinning and then doing the jump+groundpound+roll when there's no cutscene until you get used to it. It's not that hard IMO. If you find it hard, do it slower and correctly. Slow down until you find a speed you can press the buttons correctly at (even if it's too slow for mario to do the right thing). After you're doing the right buttons in the right order, speed up a bit, practice that a bit, speed up again, etc. You should never be screwing up a lot. If you are, that means you're trying to do it in a way that's too hard for you. Just practice it in an easier way (slower) a bit more until you can speed up further. It should be pretty easy to do it fairly fast so Mario is doing the right thing but you do jump into the air a bit. After practicing that a while, you should be able to gradually get the groundpound sooner after the jump. Then you can learn the timing for when to spin the joystick, and how much, during a cutscene like a race countdown.
#12754
I bet I saw it and didn't register it because it was more advanced than what I was trying to work on.
--
I practiced doing the spin-jump-groundpound-roll slowly. I noticed some things while doing that that I didn't notice when I was trying to go faster.
Now I'm able to do it faster and more consistently. Just now I did 5 of them consecutively with no mistakes and relatively fast.
And I'm able to get the spin to register without actually doing a spin. I do this while I'm rolling from the last spin-jump-groundpound-roll.
PS. my controller broke a bit. the d-stick sometimes does things on it's own. the problem shows up the clearest when I'm using the springy things that stick out of a wall. nothing happens. I don't get launched as expected. so I bought new controllers and I also got the rubber grips for the joy sticks.
practicing spin-jump-groundpound-roll
I noticed a few things and made some changes.
I previously bought the joystick grips. They help. They do slide a little bit sometimes, but it’s much better than without the grips.
I noticed that the joycon controllers move around a bit in my hands, especially when I'm rotating the d-stick to do a spin. so I put on the things that slide on the controllers, making them fit in my hands better. that has helped. I also bought silicone grips for the controllers (haven't come in yet).
I noticed that I sometimes press the Y button too early, resulting in no roll. I only get the spin-jump-groundpound.
I also noticed that after a spin-jump-groundpound-roll, you could (with no delay) repeatedly press Y for boosts (and shake the controller for faster boosts).
and I figured out that adding the repeat Y prevents the failed-roll situation. so if my first Y press was too early, by second one wasn’t.
now i’m doing the whole thing very fast and very consistently.
Here’s what I’m doing exactly:
1. Rotate d-stick 2 rotations, then keep it in the direction I want to go. This starts a spin.
2. Then press B. This starts a jump.
3. Then immediately press and hold ZL. This starts a groundpound.
4. Then immediately and repeatedly press Y. This starts a fast roll.
5. Then shake the right controller. This makes repeated fast rolls.
Step 1 could be done while something else is going on, like a cut scene, or I’m in the middle of a roll.
Have you considered the pro controller?
To see what speedrunning is like, watch some Games Done Quick archives:
https://www.twitch.tv/gamesdonequick/videos
Procontroller and spin-jump-groundpound-roll
I got the pro controller. It seems to be better for me than the joy con controllers. It's much larger in my hands.
I practiced doing tons of spin-jump-groundpound-rolls. I'm pretty good at it - pretty consistent and I get barely any height from the jump.
I tried doing it from the start of entering a kingdom. I wanted to figure out the timing necessary to do a spin at the start of entering a kingdom without Mario having to rotate twice before the spin. I think I have the timing down now. I wait a couple seconds after the last scene-skip and then I start rotating the d-stick. By the time I have control of Mario I'm already in a spin, and I immediately do the rest of the button sequence to get the jump-groundpound-roll part of it.
GISTE improvement
God damn, GISTE, it's hard to believe how much better your comments about gaming are than the crap you used to post. It's like night and day. I used to skip all your posts, but not any more.
Alisa
Thanks. I noticed the improvement too.
about my game play, comparing say my first month of play with now, it feels like night and day. I had so much trouble trying to do various moves and now it seems easy. I think following curi's ideas in #12754 helped a lot - I can see that it's about how to avoid overreaching as I learn how to do the spin-jump-groundpound-roll. I intend to keep these ideas (and my experience using them to learn the spin-jump-groundpound-roll) in mind as I do other (gaming and non-gaming) things.
about my comments improving, I guess making comments while overreaching vs making comments while avoiding overreaching is what made the night-and-day difference that you noticed.
#13025 Makes sense re: overreaching vs not overreaching. Interesting that you notice the difference too.
Releasing a roll
I watched the early part of WR speed run again so I can practice the parts after the initial instant spark roll (aka spin-jump-groundpound-roll).
https://www.speedrun.com/smo/run/y6l7w56y
I tried doing the part where you roll for a while and then jump on top of the steps and onto the bridge's railing.
I tried 3 times so far and I keep making the same mistake. I end up doing a long jump and crash into the stairs instead of doing a regular jump onto the stairs.
I think he’s doing a roll cancel and I’m not.
So I went to smallant’s movement video again and skipped to the “Releasing a roll” part:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7HZT2lmL04&t=433s
He says you just release the Z buttons to end the roll.
So I tried it but I’m still getting a long jump out of it. So I’m rolling, which means ZL is held while repeatedly pressing Y. And then I release ZL (which should stop the roll) and then I press B to jump. And I’m expecting a regular jump but instead I get a long jump like before.
Ok I think I figured it out. I have to release ZL and wait until Mario stops rolling, then it’s ok to press Y to jump. That produces a regular jump.
Rolling in a relatively straight line
continuing from #13045
Now I have to deal with another problem. I'm not rolling relatively straight like in the WR video. I'm heavily veering right because of the hills.
I rewatched the video and I notice that he's going directly in-between the hills and then after the last hill he veers left, making a straight line from that point to the where he lands on the railing.
Ok after a few tries I'm now able to go straight between the hills and then veer left just enough after the last hill.
Next I need to work on the part where I jump on the stairs and land on the railing.
Watch smallant's tutorial videos and learn his *beginner* speedrun route instead of copying stuff from the world record video. Try to focus your learning on the stuff needed to complete a beginner speedrun and then improve your time with that route (IIRC someone said a top player could get a 66min time using that route, so it's like 10% slower than the WR route, while leaving out all the hardest stuff).
#13047
oh great I was thinking I should find that sorta thing (not the fastest route, but a pretty fast route, and considerably easier than the fastest route). I thought to ask about it when I'm ready to start learning speed running, and then I forgot all about it.
I found the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg1ybu2aAwc
#13048 Do not watch that. That is the wrong video. Look in the description of that video. It links to the correct videos to watch. But scroll up to the very top of this page. There is one link in the blog post. Click that link. That is the playlist you want.
so the beginner speed run (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIr3hPpGjm4&list=PLiinoyifvFb64od8RyqPFmVqDrFwkgaa0&index=3&t=0s) skips the part where you land on the bridge's railing. that's a lot easier.
I watched up to the point where Mario walks through the door. it seems easy.
so I tried it. I didn't go in a straight enough line while rolling through the hills and then I didn't get a triple jump on the stairs. I tried again 2 more times and I'm getting similar results.
on one of my tries, I noticed that as I was coming down from my 2nd jump, I was touching the vertical part of the stair. and then on my 3rd jump, it registered as just a regular jump instead of the much higher jump that comes from a triple jump. I guess touching the stairs on the way down caused that.
ok on my next try I got the triple jump on the stairs right. I continued. I messed up by crashing into a little light fixture sticking out of the ground. I rewatched the video and I notice that he stays right while crossing the bridge and he keeps right so that he avoids the light fixture.
On my next try I avoided the light fixture and I continued towards the door. I messed up right before getting to the door. there's a little plateau that I need to get on before getting to the door. I crashed into it. this is because I did a long jump instead of a regular jump. I failed to do what I learned before (#13045) about ending a roll before trying to do a regular jump (otherwise you get a long jump).
So I returned to the middle of the bridge leading to the door and I practiced ending a roll and jumping onto the little plateau. I also added the groundpound-dive after the jump like in the video.
i tried doing the whole thing from the start of cap kingdom. I messed up on the triple jump right before getting to the 2nd bridge. So I watched that part of the video again.
i’m going to practice from the end of the first bridge to start of the 2nd bridge. There are a few things in the video I’m not doing.
Check the cap kingdom time in the world record. Add 20%. See if you can get that time. If not, don't call it easy 😈
Triple jumping off stairs and railings works. You may have timed your jump late. However, if you slid against a wall (e.g. so that wall jumping is possible) that probably prevents triple jumping.
speed running Cap kingdom up to first bridge
I practiced from the end of the first bridge to the door. I successfully did a triple jump and a groundpound-dive to cross the stairs, getting me to the start of the 2nd bridge. and then I messed up ta the little plateau just before the door by failing to end the roll.
I watched the beginning of the video again [1] to see if I’m missing anything. I notice that as he’s approaching the stairs in front of the first bridge, he does his first 2 jumps (of the triple jump) while still on the ground. Then he does his third jump from the first stair. Then he does a dive. So I want to practice that.
Failed on the first try. I started the process (of ending the roll and starting the triple jump) too late.
Failed on the second try. I think I started the process earlier but my 3rd jump wasn’t a triple jump. I think I waited too long after the 2nd jump before pressing the jump button again. So I’m guessing I started the process too early. If I had started it a bit later, I wouldn’t have needed to wait after the 2nd jump to do the 3rd jump.
Failed on the 3rd try. I released ZL in order to end the roll, but I pressed jump before the roll actually ended.
Failed on the 4th try. This was due to not being in the right place after passing the hills. I had veered to the right a bunch so I wasn’t in a position to land on the first stair.
Failed on the 5th try. I didn’t end my roll and got a long jump instead of starting a triple jump. I didn’t end up crashing into the stairs though, so I continued. I screwed up at the stairs to the 2nd bridge. It’s not clear in my mind what I’m supposed to do there. I think should avoid doing this part until I’m better at the stuff before it.
Failed on the 6th, 7th, and 8th tries in the same way. As I launched from the spark roll, I wasn’t going straight towards the bridge. I was like 30 degrees left or right of direction I wanted to go.
Failed on the 9th try. My 2nd jump landed on the stairs instead of the ground before the stairs. It seemed just as fast though.
I rewatched the video to see if I could figure out exactly where he’s end the roll before starting a triple jump. I see that he stops roll-boosting just slightly before he finishes coming off the last hill.
Failed on the 10th try. I failed to end the roll and got a long jump instead of a starting a triple jump.
AHAH! I finally got it right on my 11th try.
On my 12th try, I did all the right stuff except for that I veered left and then right as I was doing the triple jump.
On my 13th try, I failed to end the roll and got a long jump again.
On my 14th try, something happened that I’ve never seen before. As I was coming off of the last hill, I released ZL to end the roll but then I veered right like 45%. I guess I was going too slow. I think if I was going faster then I wouldn’t have veered so much.
On my 15th try, my triple jump failed. So my 3rd jump was just a regular jump. I think I was sliding on a wall which cancels the triple jump.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIr3hPpGjm4&list=PLiinoyifvFb64od8RyqPFmVqDrFwkgaa0&index=3&t=0s
speed running Cap kingdom up to first bridge - session 2
i want to practice upto the first bridge. the last part of it is a triple jump on the stairs and then a dive on to the bridge.
1st try: failed. i got a long jump again instead of ending the roll and doing a regular jump (as part of a triple jump).
2nd try: failed. i did the 1st regular jump fine, but then i think i touched the side of the stair which prevented the triple jump.
3rd try: success!
4th try: failed. I ended the roll too early. so when landing from my 2nd jump, i landed on the ground instead of the stairs.
5th try: success!
6th try: failed. I was way too far left when crossing the hills area. that made me veer right as i came off the last hill. so i wasn’t in a position to jump onto the stairs.
7th try: failed. i ended the roll too early before trying to do the triple jump.
8th try: success!
9th try: success!
10th try: success!
11th try: failed. veered too far left early on.
12th try: failed. ended roll too early.
13th try: failed. veered too far left early on.
14th try: almost a success. something went wrong that i haven’t done before. my 3rd jump was a successful triple jump but when i did the dive, i was aiming too far left with the d-stick, resulting in crashing into the edge of the bridge instead of onto the bridge.
15th try: failed. i think i ended the roll at the right time but then I didn’t start early enough with the first jump (of the triple jump).
16th try: failed. released ZL but pressed jump button too early resulting in a long jump.
17th try: success, sort of. i did everything right except for that i was not on the same stair as in the video[1] when launching for the 3rd jump. i call it a success because my dive still got me onto the bridge.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIr3hPpGjm4&list=PLiinoyifvFb64od8RyqPFmVqDrFwkgaa0&index=3&t=0s
PS. I didn't watch the video at all during this session. I knew what mistakes I made (deviations from the video) from memory.
speed running Cap kingdom up to first bridge - session 3
i want to practice upto the first bridge again. the last part of it is a triple jump on the stairs and then a dive on to the bridge.
1st try: success!
2nd try: failed. i’m not exactly sure what went wrong. I think I started the triple jump too late.
3rd try: failed, but it seemed as fast as the video[1] or close to it. I failed to end the roll and got a long jump instead of a regular jump. But I continued and was able to do some jumps on the stairs and a dive to get on the bridge.
4th try: failed. As I was landed from my 2nd jump, I was on the edge of the stair rather than on it.
5th try: failed. I veered right at the end of the last hill resulting in not being in position to jump onto the stairs.
6th try: failed. when I did the dive, I crashed into the bridge’s railing instead of landing on the bridge. I was going too far to the left.
7th try: failed. I started the triple jump too late. as I came down from the 2nd jump, I’m supposed to land on the ground in front of the first stair but instead I landed on the edge of the stair.
8th try: failed. I noticed that I veered right too much resulting in not being in position to jump onto the stairs.
9th try: success! (Although I think my time wouldn’t have been great because I veered left and then right as I was doing the triple jump.)
10th try: failed. I veered right too much at the end of the last hill. I think I wasn’t going fast enough. I guess it’s because I did not do enough roll-boosts resulting in losing too much speed/momentum.
11th try: failed. Not sure what went wrong. I don’t have a clear picture of what happened.
12th try: success!
13th try: success! (During this try I noticed that I intentionally did one last roll-boost as I was coming down from the last hill for the purpose of maintaining momentum and veering less to the right.)
14th try: failed. I veered in one direction and then the other as I was crossing the hills. That resulted in trying to correct my trajectory as I was starting the triple jump. My correction was not good and I ended up going too far to the left instead of landing on the bridge from the dive.
15th try: failed. as I was coming down from my 2nd jump onto the stairs, I slid on a stair, resulting in cancelling the triple jump sequence.
16th try: failed. I slid on the side of a stair again, resulting in cancelling the triple jump sequence.
17th try: failed. i did the triple jump too early. as I was coming down from my 2nd jump, I landed on the ground instead of the 1st stair.
18th try: failed. I failed to end the roll before jumping, resulting in a long jump instead of starting the triple jump sequence.
19th try: success!
20th try: success!
21st try: failed. I veered too far to the right after the last hill resulting in not being in position to jump onto the stairs.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIr3hPpGjm4&list=PLiinoyifvFb64od8RyqPFmVqDrFwkgaa0&index=3&t=0s
PS. I didn't watch the video at all during this session. I knew what mistakes I made (deviations from the video) from memory.
#13119 It's good to try getting things right, in detail. But you may also be being overly perfectionist. Keep in mind that the full speedrun is an hour. A big part of speedrunning is *recovering from errors*. Some of your errors seem like things you could recover from with only a few seconds of time loss. To get far in the speedrun, you need to fix lots of errors instead of starting over.
Similarly, maybe you should triple jump from a little before the stairs so it's easier than landing on a specific stair. Do you really need a triple jump at that exact spot? Does it make even a second of difference? I don't think this is a scenario where you need maximum height to get up to something.
#13121
Yes. Btw I made some errors that I thought I recovered from. Here are examples:
#13108
> Failed on the 9th try. My 2nd jump landed on the stairs instead of the ground before the stairs. It seemed just as fast though.
To clarify, the last step is to dive onto the bridge. I was able to do that despite not exactly following everything I thought the video was doing. And I said that "it seemed just a fast".
> On my 12th try, I did all the right stuff except for that I veered left and then right as I was doing the triple jump.
So I did all the moves, including the dive onto the bridge. I just lost a bit of time due to veering left and right a bit.
#13111
> 17th try: success, sort of. i did everything right except for that i was not on the same stair as in the video[1] when launching for the 3rd jump. i call it a success because my dive still got me onto the bridge.
#13119
> 3rd try: failed, but it seemed as fast as the video[1] or close to it. I failed to end the roll and got a long jump instead of a regular jump. But I continued and was able to do some jumps on the stairs and a dive to get on the bridge.
> 9th try: success! (Although I think my time wouldn’t have been great because I veered left and then right as I was doing the triple jump.)
Here's an example of a case where I knew I deviated from the video but I continued and tried to correct the problem but failed to correct it.
> 14th try: failed. I veered in one direction and then the other as I was crossing the hills. That resulted in trying to correct my trajectory as I was starting the triple jump. My correction was not good and I ended up going too far to the left instead of landing on the bridge from the dive.
Re your second paragraph, I think starting the triple jump early (such that my 3rd jump is from the ground instead of from the 1st stair), results in doing a dive that doesn't get me to the bridge. I'll try it tomorrow to make sure.
> Yes. Btw I made some errors that I thought I recovered from.
Yes. That's good. There were cases where it looked like maybe you weren't doing that, e.g.:
> 8th try: failed. I noticed that I veered right too much resulting in not being in position to jump onto the stairs.
You could still find a way to keep going and get up the stairs, even if you didn't use the planned triple jump. Your mistake probably only lost like 3 seconds.
> Re your second paragraph, I think starting the triple jump early (such that my 3rd jump is from the ground instead of from the 1st stair), results in doing a dive that doesn't get me to the bridge. I'll try it tomorrow to make sure.
You could throw your cap, dive, and jump off the cap if you need more airtime to clear something. Cap jumping is generally easier than trying to jump off small, exact spots on the ground like a specific step. It lets you skip more terrain and simplify things (only have to interact with the ground in fewer places). And it won't be much slower.
#13127
> You could still find a way to keep going and get up the stairs, even if you didn't use the planned triple jump. Your mistake probably only lost like 3 seconds.
Hmm. I thought losing 3 seconds is too much to lose. I guess I've set the standard too high (at least for now).
> You could throw your cap, dive, and jump off the cap if you need more airtime to clear something. Cap jumping is generally easier than trying to jump off small, exact spots on the ground like a specific step. It lets you skip more terrain and simplify things (only have to interact with the ground in fewer places). And it won't be much slower.
Yes. I find cap jumps much easier to use in order clear ground obstacles like stairs than other ways. I found it very difficult to land on the stairs the way the smallant video shows.
I'm going to try your way.
speed running from start of Cap kingdom to the 1st door
Going forward, I'm not going to count a run as a failure unless I crash or otherwise do something that slows me down a lot.
For this session I'll practice from the start of cap kingdom, crossing the 2 bridges, and entering the first door.
It took me like 10 tries before I could do it.
As per #13127 I decided to use a cap jump and dive instead of trying to land on the stairs. I noticed that I have to be pretty close to the first stair before jumping, otherwise my cap jump and dive doesn't get me to the bridge.
For a few of the tries, I crashed into the 1st bridge's railing because I didn't turn left enough as I was rolling. I need to get better at turning while rolling.
For most of my tries, I made lots of mistakes (deviations from what I intended to do) that I recovered from.
Total successes: 9
Re crashing into a wall/railing while rolling, I noticed that hitting the wall/railing at 45 degrees causes a crash instead of causing me to change direction. I need to hit it at less than 45 degrees, but I'm not sure how much less.
You can keep going after crashing into a wall, IMO.
Rethinking my whole process of learning speedrunning
#13130
I think I should rethink my whole process.
How do I decide what constitutes a failure?
In the case of my current situation where I'm learning how to speedrun Mario by trying to somewhat follow the smallant beginner speed run videos, I'd say a failure involves not knowing where to go next at a particular point in the speed run. for example, not remembering which moons are the easiest to get in order to move on to the next kingdom, or not remembering which moon to get before some other moon. The goal (for this part of my learning of speed running) should be to learn the overall beginner speed run path so that I could do a speed run without needing to rewatch the videos.
When I reach such a failure, what I think I should do is: stop playing, check the video, record what I should be doing next in an ordered list, post about it here, then continue with the speed run. Recording these things in an ordered list and talking about them here will help me figure out what I’m doing wrong and what to do instead and it’ll help me remember these things.
After I'm able to do a speed run of the whole game without having to check the videos or my ordered list, then I should start recording my times. From this point going forward, I’ll be measuring my progress by checking to see that my times are getting shorter with each speed run.
At this point of my learning-speedrunning project I could start optimizing smaller things. For example, let’s say that I keep falling off a ledge and dying at a particular point of the speed run path. For each of these cases I could rewatch a smallant video to see what he’s doing differently. Then I can choose a small section of the speed run that includes this point and optimize my skills for it. And I’ll discuss it here to have others (and myself) check my thinking. Then when I judge that I’m pretty consistently doing better at said point of the speed run path, I can move on with the rest of the speed run. Then I’ll repeat this cycle indefinitely until my best speed run time for the whole game is good enough. I guess that would be when I don’t have any more philosophy to learn (when I have no more leads and nobody else has any leads for me either).
> After I'm able to do a speed run of the whole game without having to check the videos or my ordered list, then I should start recording my times. From this point going forward, I’ll be measuring my progress by checking to see that my times are getting shorter with each speed run.
That's too much. Try learning maybe 3 zones and then doing a few runs of those with a timer and see how you improve and get faster. Also, you'll remember those zones better if you've gone back over them a few times with timed runs. And you get to do real runs sooner and see what they are like more.
This will give you a better idea of what mistakes are important and how important they are. You'll start seeing things like "I can still get a new best time if I keep going" vs "I'm now too far behind to improve my time, that mistake cost me big". (Don't give up just because you can't get a new best time. Practice is still good. And trying to pretty consistently get near your time is good too.)
And yeah keeping track of where you're losing time is good. Once you start doing runs, figure out your biggest problems and work on improving those. It's common for runners to do some focused practice (go to a specific area to practice a specific thing) at the start of their session, then do runs after. Then the next day, they practice some errors from yesterday's runs before doing new runs.
speedrunning Cap/Cascade kingdoms - learning the path
I watched the full smallant video on the beginner speed run for cap and cascade kingdoms.[1] Then I tried to do it. I had to stop a few times to rewatch the video because I didn't know what to do. Here's what I learned:
- I didn't know how to get up to the plateau where the dinosaur is. I had a vague idea of what to do but I couldn't get up there. I learned that I had to do a triple jump where the first jump was on a surface just below the wide area in front of the plateau. then the 2nd and 3rd jumps are on the wide area in front of the plateau. Then I do a cap jump and dive to the plateau.
- After beating the cascade boss, I knew I had to go left but I forgot what to do after that. I learned that I'm supposed to get the moon on the plateau and that I had to do a triple jump and then a cap jump and dive onto the plateau.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIr3hPpGjm4&list=PLiinoyifvFb64od8RyqPFmVqDrFwkgaa0&index=3&t=0s
speedrunning Cap/Cascade kingdoms - timed run #1 9:17
On my first timed run of the cap and cascade kingdoms I got 9:17. I ended the timer at the moment that the screen switched to the kingdom choosing screen.
There were 3 things that I lost a lot of time on:
- beating the cap kingdom boss.
- getting up to the plateau where the dinosaur is. I tried 5 times before I was able to do it.
- beating the cascade kingdom boss.
Comparing my time to the best
the current best any% speed run made it to the point I mentioned #13142 in under 5:34 [1]. So I'm doing better than half his time. His time for the whole game is 59:14 so I think I could easily get less than 2 hours after learning the whole path (where I don't need to rewatch a video to know the path).
[1] https://www.speedrun.com/smo/run/z0156oey
I'm going to spend some time optimizing each of the 3 things I mentioned in #13142 before I continue to the other kingdoms.
speedrunning Cap/Cascade kingdoms - timed run #2
So I rewatched the boss fights and noticed new things. Then I did an untimed run. Then a timed run. Here's what I noticed.
- for the cap kingdom boss, I noticed that after the first hit on the boss, smallant jumps onto 1 of the 3 green hats, ending the 3 hat sequence practically before it starts. When I tried it, I must have jumped on the wrong hat because the hat sequence did not end. It took a while before I could stop the hat and jump on it.
- re getting onto the plateau to get the dinosaur, it still took me like 4 times to get it done (both on the untimed run and the timed run).
- for the cascade kingdom boss: on my untimed run I tried to follow smallant's example. I did it a bit faster but no where as fast as smallant. on my timed run I died. that lost a lot of time.
I ended the run instead of continuing.
speedrunning Cap/Cascade kingdoms - timed run #3 8:23
I got 8:23. That's almost a 10% improvement on my last (successful) timed run.
Here are my notes:
- re cap kingdom boss. I didn't do any better than last time. I still failed to jump on the correct green hat.
- re getting on the plateau to get the dinosaur, it took only 2 tries to get up there as opposed to about 4 on all previous runs.
- re the "dino skip", I tried like 5 times before getting the jump from the trampoline. on my first timed run, I got it in 2 tries. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I guess the left foot of the Dino needs to touch the trampoline and I guess that that didn't happen on my first 4 tries. it seems like a very hard thing to get right.
- re cascade kingdom boss. I'm doing it so slow compared to the smallant beginner video. I intentionally tried not to do what smallant did so that I don't die. what he does is too risky for me.
I think I'm going to move on to the rest of the speed run.
speedrunning Cap/Cascade kingdoms - timed run #4
I tried to do a timed run again. I died at the 2nd boss and ended the run.
Here are my notes:
- re cap kingdom boss. sorta the same as last time. I did not jump on the correct green hat (actually I missed all of the hats when I tried to jump on one of them).
- re getting on the plateau to get the Dino. it took only one try. previous runs took 4 to 5 tries.
- re the "Dino skip". it worked on the first try. previous runs took 2 to 5 tries.
- re the cascade kingdom boss. I wasn't trying to do anything advanced, but I did so inadvertently. Part of the problem was that I forgot what things caused me to die in previous runs. What I should do is let the Chain Chomp pass me (instead of trying to take control of him before he rushes me like smallant does), and then take control of him. I need to be in position after he passes me so that my cap throw can reach him.
I'm going to do this again part of the run instead of moving forward with the rest.
speedrunning Cap/Cascade kingdoms - timed run #5 7:42
I got 7:42 this time. That's an 8% improve over my last successful timed run.
Here are my notes:
- re cap kingdom boss. same thing. I don't know how to jump on the right hat to end the 3 hat sequence practically before it starts. I maybe try to optimize this later by looking up details on specifically this boss.
- re getting on the plateau to get the Dino. it took only one try again. I think I licked it. what I've been doing different than before is making sure to stop and fully rotate the Dino so I'm facing directly at the trampoline before starting to move towards it.
- re the cascade kingdom boss. easy peasy since I avoided doing smallant's advanced move.
- I made lots of mistakes that I did not make on all previous runs. I expect that as I do more runs I'll avoid these mistakes and get a much better time.
I kinda wanna keep doing this part of the run instead of continuing to the rest of the kingdoms. I want to see how close I can get to 5:34 (the WR time upto the point where the kingdom switcher screen comes up).
Mistake in my last comment
#13157
this part is wrong:
> - re getting on the plateau to get the Dino. it took only one try again. I think I licked it. what I've been doing different than before is making sure to stop and fully rotate the Dino so I'm facing directly at the trampoline before starting to move towards it.
I meant this instead:
- re getting on the plateau. it took just one try.
- re the "Dino skip". it took only one try again. I think I licked it. what I've been doing different than before is making sure to stop and fully rotate the Dino so I'm facing directly at the trampoline before starting to move towards it.
practicing problematic parts up to end of Cascade kingdom
I practiced the problematic parts up to the end of Cascade kingdom. Here are my notes:
- re cap kingdom boss. I succeeded at jumping on the main green hat of the 3 hats, resulting in ending the 3-hat sequence practically before it started. this saved a lot of time.
- re getting up to the plateau. I messed up a few times instead of getting it right the first time. I think I just need more practice.
- re "Dino skip". I had to circle around like 3 times before getting the jump from the trampoline. I'm not sure what I did different than before.
more practice up to end of Cascade kingdom
- re cap kingdom boss. I timed my jump wrong resulting in the 3-hat sequence taking a bunch of time.
- re getting up to the plateau to get the Dino. It took a few tries. I failed to get a triple jump and I know why now. when I jump from the lower surface that is flush with the top of the odyssey, and then land onto the higher surface (which is when I'm supposed to do the 2nd jump of the triple jump), I got too much forward movement when landing, resulting in ending the triple jump possibility.
- re "Dino skip". took a few tries. it's time to watch a video about this. so I watched this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGhZkBPNSKg. I tried it a few times. Seems to work very consistently. That's going to save a bunch of time.
- re cascade kingdom boss. I figured out how to get the boss to not chase me while I have control of the Chain Chomp. That saves some time. I still don't use smallant's advance move of taking control of the Chain Chomp before it rushes me.
more practice up to end of Cascade kingdom
- re cap kingdom boss. successfully jumped on the correct green hat.
- re getting up to the plateau to get the Dino. success on 1st try.
- re "Dino skip". took 2 tries.
- re cascade kingdom boss. I did pretty good, accept for not yet using small ant's advanced move of taking control of the Chain Chomp before it rushes me.
I should have timed this one. I did awesome compared to all previous runs.
speedrunning Cap/Cascade kingdoms - timed run #6
I did a timed run and it took too long so I stopped timing and just focussed on practice. Here are my notes:
- re cap kingdom boss. I failed to jump on the correct hat.
- re getting up to the plateau to get the Dino. I got it on the first try. Later I messed up the run and went back to this place to try to get onto the plateau using a wall jump. I did this because I saw it's a way to get up there if you fail using the first method. The first method is a triple jump and arial cap jump and dive. If that fails, then instead of retrying to do that, I do a backflip then wall jump then dive.
- re "Dino skip". this is where I lost so much time that I stopped timing myself. I tried like 6 times before I was able to get upto the boss area. I figured out one thing I was doing wrong. I was jumping off of the Dino too early, resulting in not being close enough to the plateau where the boss is.
- re cascade kingdom boss. I did smallant's advanced move of hitting the Chain Chomp with cappy and then taking control of him before he rushes me.
This is getting more and more fun.
speedrunning Cap/Cascade kingdoms - timed run #7 7:34
I got a new PM. 7:34.
- re cap kingdom boss. I failed to jump on the correct hat.
- re "Dino skip". I messed up jumping on the trampoline once. Got it the 2nd time or 3rd time around. Then I failed to jump off the Dino at the right time, but I got it on the 2nd time. I prolly lost 30 seconds.
My kid and I are competing for this now. On her first timed run, she got just above what I got on my first timed run of 9:17. And she's played the game (both the regular playing and speed running practice) waaaaay less than I have.
speedrunning Cap/Cascade kingdoms - timed run #8 7:29 and #9 7:14
Another PR. 7:29. After the run I kept practicing my weak areas in cascade kingdom.
- re cap kingdom boss. I failed to jump on the correct hat. But I figured out that I've been jumping too early. I'm gonna wait a little bit longer next time.
- re "dino skip". I messed up by not getting the Dino's left foot to hit the trampoline (so I didn't get launched up). After the run I practiced this a bunch. I now have a much better idea of exactly where the Dino needs to be before I take a step with the Dino's left foot onto the trampoline.
- re jumping up to the plateau to get the moon. I've been messing this up a lot so I practiced it, analyzed it, and figured out what I need to do. The start of this is after beating the cascade boss and Mario starts out right in front of the odyssey. Here's what I have to do:
1. I move left (just to get some momentum)
2. immediately do a long jump
3. immediately do a regular jump (while still on the lower ground level)
4. continue to do the 2nd and 3rd jump of the triple jump (while on the higher ground level) (the 3rd jump clears the Chain Chomp that rushes me)
5. then do an arial cap jump
I did another timed run and got 7:14. During this run, here’s what I noted:
- re cap kingdom boss. I waited too long or something. I didn’t jump on the correct green hat to end the 3-hat sequence.
- re getting up to the plateau to get the Dino. I messed up on my first try. Then I did the backflip, wall jump, arial cap jump, dive, to get on the plateau. I lost very little time by recovering this way.
- Re “Dino skip”. I messed up getting the Dino’s left foot to hit the trampoline. I got it right on the 2nd try.
- Re jumping on the plateau to get the moon. I did something wrong and didn’t make it up to the plateau (at that point the Chain Chomp smashed the rocks, revealing the pipe - so I went through the pipe to get to the moon). I’m not sure what I did wrong. I think I got distracted by the Chain Chomp coming at me. I should not be distracted by it though cuz if I do things right then I’ll clear right over him.
- Re cascade kingdom boss. I got hit a couple of times. So I lost some time due to this. i still did it pretty fast compared to previous times.
I think I still have lots of room for improvement that won’t require much more skill than I have now.
speedrunning Cap/Cascade kingdoms - timed run #10 7:30
this is the first time that I completed a timed run and didn't get a PR. I got 7:30. here's what I noted:
- re cap kingdom boss. still can't jump on the right hat.
- re "Dino skip". I missed the trampoline the first time but got it on the 2nd time around. I also messed up on the trampoline jump too and didn't make it to the plateau to the boss.
- re jumping on the plateau to get the moon. again I messed up, but not for being distracted by the Chain Chomp. I was too close to the plateau and hit it instead of getting on top. had to back flip, wall jump, dive to recover.
- re cascade kingdom boss. I got hit a couple of times. one instance was when I was trying to take control of the Chain Chomp before he rushed me. I wasn't close enough so my cappy didn't take control. the second instance of getting hit was when I took control of the Chain Chomp but i let the boss hit me, not sure why. I guess it was because I was near the perimeter of the boss area and didn't know what to do.
PS. my kid's PR is 7:40.
more practice in the Cascade kingdom
I just wanted to practice this time. so I repeated the following cycle:
- starting in front of the odyssey, go left to get on top of the plateau where the moon is/would be.
- go back to the front of the odyssey. start the process of getting up to the cascade boss. (so, getting up to the plateau where the Dino is, then "Dino skip".)
Next time I'll do a timed run and then repeat this cycle a bunch of times for practice.
What games do you recommend for speedrunning on Xbox 360?
#13183 I dunno exactly but I talked about this on my stream https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z93KKNbycgo
I'm not sure exactly where, I think it came up on and off, there's some stuff around 72min. One thing I suggested was watching Games Done Quick to see a variety of games and see what you like.
#13184 Thanks. I will check it out. I'm interested trying out the game approach to changing habits.
speedrunning Cap/Cascade kingdoms - timed run #11 7:15
Last night I practiced the "Dino skip" repeatedly for like an hour. I noticed that sometimes I'm able to jump (off the Dino) onto the plateau easily. Other times it's pretty bad how not close I am.
Today I did a timed run and got a new PR of 7:14. Here's what I noted:
- "Dino skip". got it on the first try. I thought I wasn't going to make it. Mario touched the plateau's horizontal edge like 5 or 6 Mario-lengths under the top of the plateau and somehow that initiated the boss fight.
- re getting the moon on the plateau. I did something I've never done before. As I was getting the moon, I was also jumping, expecting to get the moon and get a bunch of horizontal distance towards the odyssey. but I missed the moon. at this point I wasn't in a position to return back to the plateau and instead I fell all the way down and had to get back up. I lost a lot of time.
PS. My kid's PR is 6:56, so she's beating me now.
PPS. I asked her to watch me and tell me what I'm doing wrong. one thing she said was that I'm slow at skipping the cut scenes.
> - for the cap kingdom boss, I noticed that after the first hit on the boss, smallant jumps onto 1 of the 3 green hats, ending the 3 hat sequence practically before it starts. When I tried it, I must have jumped on the wrong hat because the hat sequence did not end. It took a while before I could stop the hat and jump on it.
You can finish the hat sequence quickly by throwing your cap at the hats. You don't have to jump on them. You can use the spin throw or the homing throw.
> Here’s what I’m doing exactly:
> 1. Rotate d-stick 2 rotations, then keep it in the direction I want to go. This starts a spin.
> 2. Then press B. This starts a jump.
> 3. Then immediately press and hold ZL. This starts a groundpound.
> 4. Then immediately and repeatedly press Y. This starts a fast roll.
> 5. Then shake the right controller. This makes repeated fast rolls.
For step 4, you should press Y once with the correct timing. Don't press it repeatedly. Practice to learn the right time to press Y.
#13022 Best backhanded compliment I've ever read. And the poor guy thanks her for it. Jesus what did I stumble into...
getting to know Sand kingdom route
I watched the smallant beginner speedrunning video for sand kingdom, all the way through the explanatory part.
Then I tried getting all of the moons according to the easiest route. I missed the moon from the bird and ignored it. I got the rest.
While doing that, there were times where I got off route by not making it to the top of a plateau. In those cases I tried to figure out a quick and easy way to get back on route (things not shown or explained in the smallant video).
getting to know Sand kingdom route - session #2
I went through this route while watching the video guide as a reference.
For this session I focussed on maintaining continuity along the route (unlike my last session where I focussed on finding ways to recover when I deviated from the expected route).
tried Sand kingdom route without video guide
I tried to do the Sand kingdom route without the video guide as a reference.
I got to what I thought was the last moon I needed and noticed that I was missing like 3 moons.
So I rewatched the video guide and noticed where I veered off the route.
Then I redid the whole route again without the video guide. This time I didn't go off route.
Note: I still haven't incorporated getting the moon from the bird. The video guide gives multiple options for how to get the moon from the bird and I have not yet established which of them is best for me.
Sounds like progress. Why did you start again? I think that's worth writing down as a reminder to yourself in case you stop again.
GDQ - The Safe Space For Speedrunners
https://archive.org/details/GDQTheSafeSpaceForSpeedrunners
tried Sand kingdom route without video guide - session #2
I tried again to do the Sand kingdom route without referencing the video guide. I did it right. I also established the best method (for me, for now) to get the moon that smallant treats as a variable in his guide. He says that if you fail to get the moon from the bird then you can get the moon from a musical challenge at the top of a tree. I did that and I found it a lot easier than getting the moon from the bird.
I did the route 3 more times.
In these 4 runs, I focussed on maintaining continuity.
After these 4 runs I thought maybe it's time to start timing my runs. But I don't think I'm ready for that. There are a few parts of the route where I do it wrong on the first try in 100% of my runs. For example, the part where I have to get on top of an ice tower. I think I should reach a level where I succeed on first try at least sometimes before I start timing my runs.
> I think I should reach a level where I succeed on first try at least sometimes before I start timing my runs.
Why? Getting it on e.g. the 7th try instead of 9th is faster. You can measure your progress right now and see your improvement.
tried Sand kingdom route without video guide - session #3
I did 4 more runs without referencing the video guide.
- On the first 3 runs I wasn't able to get on the ice tower on first try. I figured out a way to recover and get on the ice tower. On the 4th run I got on the ice tower on first try.
- I'm getting better at using the Bullet Bill. Crashing less. Falling less when trying to exit the Bullet Bill to get on top of a plateau.
- I'm having trouble when rolling on hills. I end up turning direction a lot when I'm trying to go in a straight line. I've started to use long jumps (followed by rolling again) to correct my direction.
More practice on sand kingdom route
I did 4 runs. Then I went back to practice one part of the route. It involves getting on top of an ice tower. In my last session I figured out a way to recover if I don’t make it on top of the ice tower the first time. But in this session I had trouble replicating the recovery method. I tried a bunch and finally figured out exactly where to jump from, and where to land on the ice tower. Then I did the same thing but from a better camera angle (so I didn’t have to reorient the camera angle).
More practice on sand kingdom route
4 more runs.
Still having trouble using my recovery method to get on the ice tower, but getting better.
Still having trouble rolling on hills in a straight line, but getting better.
Timed run of Sand kingdom #1 5:57
I did a timed run of the Sand kingdom. I started the clock at the end of the loading screen (at the moment I could skip the cut scene) and ended the clock when I entered the Odyssey.
I got 5:57.
Some notes:
- I forgot to switch to Japanese.
- I made a mistake that I normally do not make (at least not in the last few days of untimed runs). I think maybe I did this mistake because I was thinking about being timed instead of only focussing on doing the run.
- I watched the smallant guide again. I noticed a lot of things that he did differently that I did, some of which I already knew about, most of which I did not. I'm going to work on these things individually to try to match smallant's methods.
#14701 Roughly what time do you need in Sand to get a 2 hour overall game completion time? 1.5 hrs? 1.25 hrs? 1hr?
Do you have a rough idea of your current goal or what times mean?
Goal for whole speedrun
#14705
Yes I wrote about that for the Cap and Cascade kingdoms. I calculated that my best time equates to a full run of about 1.5 hours.
Re Sand kingdom:
I looked at this speedrun as a reference. It gets 1 hour 1 min. It was world record in August 2018. https://youtu.be/0rnsK0Ao4mY
That run gets a time of 4:18 for the period between my starting and ending points for Sand kingdom. I got 5:57, which is 38% more. So a rough estimate for my whole run, using only my Sand run, is 1.4 hours.
#14712 That sounds like your Sand Kingdom time is good enough to move on to learning more Kingdoms and getting a whole run finished.
First look at Lake route
I moved on to Lake kingdom.
This time I watched the guide while stopping at each moon to try out that section of the route.
This meant that I was watching the route with no explanation from smallant.
I got stuck at the point where I had to use a Cheep Cheep to jump out of the water, jump out of the Cheep Cheep and onto a wall, wall jump, and cap jump onto the platform. I tried it a bunch of times and failed before I decided to watch the rest of the guide where smallant gives explanations.
The explanations helped. It still took me a bunch more tries but I finally was able to do the series of moves to get me on the platform. Then I jumped back in the water to try it again. It took a few more tries before I was able to success again. Then I moved on.
There was only one thing left to do — beat the boss.
Initially I tried to copy what smallant did with only one viewing of the guide and without hearing his explanations first. I couldn’t replicate any of the moves.
So I listened to the explanations. I was able to do the first part on first try — triple jump onto the boss, hitting him once. I was also able to do the second part on first try too — stand inside the ring of coins, wait for his hat to start spinning, then back flip onto his head. But I failed to do the next series of moves. I also can’t explain how to do it. I need to rewatch and listen to the explanation again.
Practicing Lake route
I practiced the Lake route 10 times without referencing the guide. Notes:
- The first part of the route was kinda easy.
- I had a lot of trouble replicating the part of the route where you jump out of the water onto a platform. In none of the 10 trials did I do this part in one attempt. I had to do it like 3 to 6 times before success.
- I also had a lot of trouble replicating the moves to beat the boss that I was able to do on first try last session. I resorted to beating the boss the regular way on all 10 trials.
- In none of these trials did I try to figure out a recovery method for when I fail to do something like make it on top of a platform. I think there are 2 spots like this that need a recovery method.
After these trials I practiced the part where you are in a Cheep Cheep, you jump out of the water, jump out of the Cheep Cheep and onto a wall, wall jump, then cap jump onto a platform. Notes:
- I figured out a recovery method for when you fail on first try of getting on the platform from the water. It was a method I learned when I did the speedrun for the Lake kingdom race. There is a circular island where you do a triple jump and cap jump and dive onto the platform.
- I practiced this part of the route, combined with the recovery method, a ton of times. Towards the end of this practice, I got on the platform with the regular method from the Cheep Cheep on first try about 3 out of 5 times. In the other 2 times I was able to use the recovery method on first try. So I think I’m good enough now on this part to do timed runs.
I think practicing beating the boss the wrong way 10 times was a bad idea. Why not check the right way and practice that?
#14746
I was doing something that I had been doing a lot. If I found a move to be way too hard for me, I treated it as too advanced for me now and I found an easier way. For example, in the Sand kingdom, getting the moon from the bird was very hard for me, so I replaced that with getting a moon from a musical challenge.
#14751 actually that's not exactly what happened. for each of the 10 boss fights, I tried the 2 things that I had mentioned trying from the guide:
> So I listened to the explanations. I was able to do the first part on first try — triple jump onto the boss, hitting him once. I was also able to do the second part on first try too — stand inside the ring of coins, wait for his hat to start spinning, then back flip onto his head. But I failed to do the next series of moves. I also can’t explain how to do it. I need to rewatch and listen to the explanation again.
My success rate using these 2 moves on first try in the 10 boss fights was 0%.
I tried the triple jump on the boss's head many times per fight. I think only the first one made sense, which happens right at the start of the fight. I think all the other tries were impractical because the boss was throwing his hat at me, which I think doesn't happen right at the start of the fight.
Re the backflip onto boss's head, that I tried using throughout the fight anytime a ring of coins popped out of the boss.
I used the normal methods of hitting the boss when these other methods didn't work and when the boss through his hat at me in such a way where it was easy for me to throw cappy at the hat. that results in being in position to do the normal method of hitting the boss (walk onto the boss's hat, which does a spin jump, and slowly come down onto the boss's head).
-----
Tangent:
I looked at a world record video to make my goal for the Lake route. I noticed that he used the backflip repeatedly to hit the boss. That seems easier than what the smallant guide recommends (which involves groundpounding onto the boss, then doing a ground-pound jump, then letting the boss hit you on his way up as you are still in the air).
Practicing Lake boss fight
I did the Lake boss fight a bunch of times.
With each fight I tried:
- the triple jump to get the first hit on the boss. I got this right like 5 out of 6 fights.
- stand inside the ring of coins, wait for hat to spin, then backflip on to his hat, then do that a second time. the second one scores a point (at least according to the speedrun I watched). I keep failing to achieve the 2nd backflip onto his hat. He removes his hat or something before I land on him. This puts me in a position to use the normal method of hitting the boss.
One thing I gained from this practice is I got faster at doing the normal method of hitting the boss. I move close to the boss, expecting him to throw out his at to his left (my right). So I aim myself towards where his hat is coming. And I also throw out cappy and leave cappy just to the right of the boss (where his hat will be going). Then he throws his hat at cappy. When it hits, his hat turns upside down and at that point I can walk onto the hat, which puts me into a spin jump. And while I'm in the air, I move towards the boss and groundpound on his head.
My skill level for this boss fight is about the same as my skill level for the other boss fights.
Lake kingdom timed run
I’m measuring from the start of having control of Mario to throwing cappy on the globe to enter the odyssey.
A 1-hour speedrun gets about 2 min 7 seconds for this section.
I’m shooting for a 1.5 hour speedrun, so my goal for this section is 3 min 10 sec.
These are my results:
- Died in boss fight
- 3:22 (messed up a lot trying to get on the platform from the water)
- Died in boss fight
- 2:57 (no mess ups getting onto platform from the water)
So I’m ready to move on to next kingdom.
Goal for whole speed run, factoring in variance
My calculations for my 1.5 hour goal for a whole speed run do not factor in variance. My calculations have instead assumed (as a first approximation) that for an entire speed run, I'd be able to achieve my PRs for every kingdom. I want to make a better approximation than that. So how much should I add to my goal to account for variance? If I add 33%, that results in a 2-hour goal for the whole speed run. Thoughts?
Monte Carlo simulation
#14789 Whenever you want to predict the future performance of a process that has random variation, you could consider using Monte Carlo simulation, provided you have historical or typical/expected data for the process.
One way to use Monte Carlo simulation for your Mario Odyssey runs would be to keep records for how long it took you to complete each kingdom the last N times you tried it. For example, say your last 5 times Sand Kingdom were, in minutes: 20, 25, 40, 30, and 25. Then you could write a program or a spreadsheet that would simulate the length of an entire speed run by picking one time at random for each kingdom and adding them up. Finally, you could simulate, say, 1000 of those speed runs, sort them from low to high, and look at the 50th percentile time (the 500th time on the list), the 10th percentile time (the 100th time on the list), etc., and set your goal based on that. For example, if you set the 5th percentile time as your goal, then you could expect to hit that goal one in every 20 runs. This expectation depends on some assumption such as:
- your past kingdom completion times will be representative of your upcoming times for those kingdoms
- how long you take for one kingdom in a given run doesn't affect how long you take for any other kingdom in the same run or how long you take for any kingdom in a future run
The simulations could also be enhanced to account for things like starting over if any kingdom takes too long or if the total elapsed time gets too high.
#14789 It's a learning process. Just get a whole run done, see what time you get, improve it. Getting individual level times that fit a 1.5 hour run seems fine as a criterion for moving on. Doing full runs will give you additional practice and later you'll practice the parts you screw up the most.
First look at Wooded route
I moved on to Wooded kingdom.
Like last kingdom I watched the guide while stopping at each moon to try out that section of the route. This meant that I was watching the route with no explanation from smallant.
I'll list all of the moons:
1- involved hitting a bunny.
— I was able to get it done on first try. I'm not sure this is going to work consistently.
2- move left, grab rock, hit another rock with it.
— very easy.
3- go to store, buy moon.
— But I didn’t have 100 coins. This means that I should have collected more coins in earlier kingdoms.
4- go left, jump up to top of water fall. Follow river to the end. Do a series of jumps to get on a ledge to get a moon from the seed.
— I couldn’t get up to the water fall despite trying to follow the guide like 8 times. But I figured out a little bit different method that works well for me. I’m able to do it very consistently (100% success rate with last 8 tries) and it’s only slightly slower. My method involves a wall jump where smallant’s method did not.
— To get up the ledge, it took 3 tries to get it right. Then I practiced 6 more times and got it right in 5 of those.
5- go in the cave, through the gate. Get the Uproot and use it to get up the plateau on the right. Get moon from the seed.
— very easy
6/7- get down to the lake below and get in the green portal. Get 2 moons in the mini world.
— I died once but finally got through this mini world. I was very slow compared to the guide.
— I tried it 2 more times and did it a bit faster.
8- get up to where the maze is. get moon.
— had trouble but wasn’t too bad.
9- jump across to the other plateau, hit flower monster.
10- jump across to small ledge. Follow ledge to get moon from seed.
11- get back to the area where the flower monster was. get across an abyss to another plateau. keep going up to the top. Get moon from seed.
— I tried 10 times to get across the abyss like smallant does. i’m not even close. So I used the slow method of pressing a button that makes a bridge. I’ll also watch the rest of the video to see if smallant’s explanations help.
12- get on an adjacent tower and enter the doorway. Go left, get Uproot, press button for bridge, take bridge around center tower, get moon from seed.
Not finished
First look at Wooded route (continued)
13- keep going up the tower using the Uproot. at the top of the tower, use the Uproot to reach as high as possible, which reveals a moon.
14/15/16- go through the door to get out of the tower. use a series of moves to get up to the plateau where the boss fight happens (so as to avoid the normal long way of using the steps to get up there).
-- this was very easy for me to do on first try. I used a ground pound jump, then a cap jump towards the wall, then wall jump, and cap jump and dive into the battle arena.
-- I tried replicating the guide for beating the boss. I did some of the moves right. for some of the moves that I got wrong, I was able to do something similar that achieved the same goal, but was a little bit slower. the goal is to prevent the boss from starting a sequence where he throws the purple poison on the floor as he moves around the arena.
First look at Wooded route (continued)
I watched the rest of the guide so I could hear the explanations.
I learned some things:
- I can get the Uproot to extend higher by shaking the controller. This helps to get from moon 12 to moon 13 without having too traverse the moving bridge that goes around the tower.
- During the boss fight, after hitting the boss, I should stand on the ring of coins and wait for the boss to come at me before doing a jump (just tap the jump button with no direction) onto the boss.
Practicing Wooded route without the guide
I practiced doing the Wooded route without the guide to see if I remember where to go after each moon. I had no trouble at all.
I also practiced some of the moves many times because I kept dying. e.g. failing to make it to a ledge resulting in falling into an abyss.
I beat the boss easily/quickly. I prevented the boss from ever doing his sequence where he throws poison on the floor as he travels around the arena.
Practicing Wooded route without the guide #2
I went through the route 3 times.
I'm still making major mistakes (like falling into an abyss) a lot, which loses a lot of time. I tried making slight changes to my moves to see what worked better.
I'm doing pretty good on the boss fight.
#14877 You gotta be careful in wooded cuz falling into the deep woods is worse than dying. It's a larger time loss!
Practicing Wooded route without the guide #3
I did the route 4 times. Still not consistently avoiding the big mistakes that cause a lot of time loss. It seems like I'm making different mistakes each time.
I'm getting better at doing smaller things like hitting the bunny on first try.
#14878 Yeah I did that a bunch of times on previous sessions. Did it once this session.
Practice, and timed run of Wooded kingdom
I did the route once. I didn't make any errors that caused a big time loss. So I thought it's time to do a timed run.
I looked at this speedrun as a reference. https://youtu.be/0rnsK0Ao4mY. It gets 1 hour 1 min for the whole run and 5.53 min for the period between my starting and ending points for Wooded kingdom. I got 7.23 min, which is 31% more. So a rough estimate for my whole run, using only my Wooded run, is 1.3 hours. Time to do next kingdom.
First look at Cloud kingdom
I watched the beginners guide for Cloud kingdom.
It's basically just a fight with Bowser.
I died 3 times before I was able to beat him.
I figured out how to prevent Bowser's ring-of-fire series of attacks and his throwing-balls series of attacks. This saves a lot of time.
Practicing Cloud kingdom
I watched the rest of the guide to hear the explanations. They helped clarify some things.
I did the route 6 times. I'm still not able to consistently prevent Bowsers series of attacks.
My main trouble comes after my first two hits on Bowser where he throws 6 hats. Sometimes I fail to hit the white hat. Other times I hit the white hat but I'm too far from Bowser to gain control of the hat and hit him before he jumps away.
So I watched the explanation part of the guide again. I should be anticipating where the white hat is going to go and I haven't been doing that.
I did another practice run. The anticipate thing worked. I did the 3rd hit as intended. But I messed up earlier on the fight so I still need practice to be more consistent.
I did another practice run. I messed up early on -- causing Bowser to jump away, losing a lot of time -- and I know why. I did the rest as expected.
I think I need another practice session to get more consistent.
Practice and timed run
I did two practice runs. My second run was pretty good. No big time losses.
So I did a timed run and got 1.43 min from the start of having control of Mario until I entered Lost kingdom.
Using the same ~1 hour speedrun to calculate my goal for this Kingdom: my time is 23% more, meaning 1.25 hours for my whole speedrun. Time for next kingdom.
First look at Lost kingdom
I watched the guide one section at a time while trying to replicate the moves. I completed the whole route.
This kingdom seems to be the most difficult. I died lots of times. There was also a situation where a vulture stole my hat and I had to retrieve it, which was not part of the route.
Next time I’m going to watch the rest of the guide for the explanations.
Practice Lost kingdom without guide
I practiced this route a few times. On the first one I forgot where to go twice and had to lookup the guide each time.
On the first practice run I died from falling many many times. Each time puts me back at the start of the Kingdom. I also got my hat stolen by the vulture again. I don’t know what’s causing this.
On the second run, I died from falling just as many times I think. I didn’t need the guide to remind me of where to go. The vulture stole my hat again but now I have a theory about why it happened and how to prevent it. I also have a second theory ready if my first one is wrong.
On my 3rd run I died from falling a lot less. I was wrong about my first vulture theory.
On my 4th run I died even less. But my second vulture theory is wrong. I’m not sure there is a way to prevent the vulture from stealing my hat besides never crossing the area near the bridge between the Odyssey and the first checkpoint flag.
On my fifth run I died even less. All my theories about the vulture have been wrong. I did not have to cross the bridge area and the vulture still stole my hat.
i watched the guide for the explanations to figure out the vulture thing when I realized that I had planned on watching it before these practice runs. In the future think I should watch the guide in full before doing practice runs.
I did a 6th practice run to test some of the things I learned from the explanatory part of the guide.
After watching, do you understand the vulture now?
Practice Lost kingdom without guide #2
I did a few practice runs.
I noticed that clepto-skip resets if you die. (This is a problem only if you die before getting all the moons you need.) Having the vulture steal your hat is a huge time loss. And having to repeat clepto-skip in order to avoid having your hat stolen is also a huge time loss. I don’t know which one is a bigger time loss.
And it’s very easy to die. There are two points where it’s easiest to die. Crossing the lava lake is one. And getting the last moon from under the bridge is another. Both of these mistakes require repeating clepto-skip (if you plan to avoid having your hat stolen).
I have a theory. There are easier versions of clepto-skip. I could use the easiest version instead of the one that I’m using now. That would greatly reduce my chances of dying while crossing the lava lake. Also I could use the faster/harder version on first try, and then using the slower/easier version if I die and have to repeat clepto-skip.
I don’t have a potential solution about how to increase my chances of surviving while getting the last moon (under the bridge). Maybe there is a way to get another moon instead that has less chance of dying. I think this is a question for the SMO discord chat. I'll work on that and reply with results.
----
#14936 partly yes. I think I understand the problem but I don't have a full solution yet. see my previous 2 paragraphs.
Asked my clepto-skip question on SMO discord chat
I asked:
> Re any% speed run, Lost kingdom
>
> Clepto-skip resets if you die. And its very easy to die before getting the last moon from under the bridge.
>
> So I was thinking I should shoot for a different moon that takes a bit longer but has a much lower chance of dying. Any ideas?
somebody replied:
> ye you can get the golden cage moon and the moon behind the stairs
> but its slower
I knew that the golden cage moon was a possibility. I was hoping for a quicker moon.
I rewatched the smallant guide and noticed that I didn't finish going through all the explanatory part. Towards the end of the video, smallant says you can get the golden cage moon instead of getting the moon under the bridge. I'm going to try that out instead of going after the moon under the bridge.
IIRC if you don't get any checkpoints then if you die under the bridge you respawn by the Odyssey and you can leave, only loses a few seconds.
You could also try warping to Odyssey right after getting moon but i think you have to be on the ground to warp, but i'm not sure offhand.
if you do get a checkpoint and die, unless your hat gets instantly stolen on respawn, just warp to odyssey without moving. might work. idk.
#14943 that only works if you got all the moons you needed, including the moon under the bridge, which isn't the situation I have. see this from #14941:
> I noticed that clepto-skip resets if you die. (This is a problem only if you die before getting all the moons you need.) Having the vulture steal your hat is a huge time loss. And having to repeat clepto-skip in order to avoid having your hat stolen is also a huge time loss. I don’t know which one is a bigger time loss.
#14944 same problem as above. (also your hat can't get stolen instantly on respawn. you have to get closer to the vulture.)
Established my best beginner route for Lost kingdom and timed runs
I tried out some stuff and figured out a beginner route (that is different than what smallant recommends) that has much less chance of dying before getting all the required moons. It avoids the moon under the bridge. It involves destroying a cage and getting the moon within it.
So I did some timed runs. On the first 4 runs I made major mistakes causing huge time losses, so I ended the runs before finishing. On my 5th I didn't make any major mistakes and got 2.97.
A ~1-hour speed run gets 1.62 min for Lost kingdom (from my starting and ending points). So my time is 83% more. So my timed run for this kingdom is 42 seconds slower than my goal -- where my goal is 1.5 x 1.62 min.
I don't think I can do much better than that at my current skill level. And 42 seconds is not much compared to my goal for the whole speed run, which is 1.5 hours (not even 1%). So I think I should move on to next kingdom.
Thoughts?
#14946 You seem confused. The moon under the bridge is the last moon in the route. Get it last. You can die when you get it.
Are you dying *before* getting it? Is that the problem?
Did you change the route to put that moon in the middle? Don't do that.
Don't move on. You have big problems here that need fixing.
#14941 > I noticed that clepto-skip resets if you die. (This is a problem only if you die before getting all the moons you need.)
you can get the last moon (bridge moon) if you die without having to repeat the run. smallant talks about it at 13:19 in the cloud/lost kingdom video.
> Having the vulture steal your hat is a huge time loss. And having to repeat clepto-skip in order to avoid having your hat stolen is also a huge time loss. I don’t know which one is a bigger time loss
i think by "clepto-skip" you mean: the jump you do on the tree to get to the other side of the lava, and avoid getting your hat stolen. its shown at 6:15 to 6:22.
i think you should just repeat the clepto-skip. why not do it again? its a part of the speedrun so practicing it is good. going over the bridge and getting your had stolen is not a part of the speedrun.
> And it’s very easy to die. There are two points where it’s easiest to die. Crossing the lava lake is one. *And getting the last moon from under the bridge is another. Both of these mistakes require repeating clepto-skip (if you plan to avoid having your hat stolen).*
you do not have to repeat clepto-skip if you die while trying to get the last moon. smallant talks about it at 13:19
Clepto-skip problem
#14948 I often die *while* trying to get the last moon under the bridge, but before getting it. Like I'll jump towards the moon and miss it and fall into the lava and die.
#14949 yes I tried that. The vulture steals my hat as I get near the edge of the bridge. so, maybe i'm walking too far towards the vulture, causing the clepto-trigger to fire. I guess I should work on figuring out how to do this without the trigger firing.
Practice getting moon under bridge and timed runs
I tried getting the moon under the bridge starting from odyssey (as if I died while trying to get that moon during the normal route). I died tons of times. I got it right a few times.
I also figured out roughly where the line is before the clepto trigger fires.
So I tried some timed runs. Here are my results:
1. Died once. Had to redo clepo-skip. Got 3.13.
2. Fell off a platform and instead of dying, the clepto-trigger fired. So I restarted.
3. Died twice. Restarted.
4. Died twice. Restarted.
5. Died twice. Restarted.
6. Died twice. Restarted.
7. Died twice. Restarted.
8. Died twice. Restarted.
All of these deaths (except the one in run 2) involved failing to cross the lava lake. I’ve been using the version of clepto-skip that smallant shows as the normal beginner route. I think that it’s too hard for me and that I should use an easier/slower version. I’m gonna study that next time.
Stop restarting and finish runs and get times. Don't restart any of them, just finish. Then you can e.g. see if your times improve.
Most of those you didn't even get your hat stolen, but you should even learn to recover from that error. Recovering from errors instead of giving up is an important skill.
Get used to no-reset runs. They're better for practicing.
For the lava lake, 3 things. 1) *slow down*. Take your time there to reduce deaths.
2) Practice that specific thing a bunch. grab a checkpoint near it, get rid of clepto, save the game, and practice that area. or just load your main save file where you already beat the game and practice jumping around the lava lake on that one.
3) document exactly how you die. what error kills you? write that down every time. learn which errors you're making. it'd also be good to record video of your gameplay and rewatch what you did. you should learn how to do that. there are many ways, e.g. put phone on a stand and point at tv or the switch can record like 30s built in.
Practicing crossing the lava lake
For this session I’m only going to practice crossing the lava lake. I’m going to use the smallant version where you jump up to the tree, then pause to reorient, then throw out cappy, then run on to cappy to jump. This is the same variation I did in the entire last session.
Trials:
1. Success, but very close to not making it.
2. Success, same as above.
3. Success, same as above.
4. Success, same as above.
5. Success, but very close to not making it. On this trial, I paid attention to exactly where I was on the tree leaf before throwing out cappy. I was on the 3rd line.
6. Died. Hit the edge at the other end of the lava lake. Not sure what caused this. It seemed that I did the same things as before.
7. Success, but very close to not making it. Again I was on the 3rd line on the tree leaf before throwing out cappy.
8. Success, same as above.
9. Died. Hit the edge just like in trial 6. Not sure what caused this. It seemed that I did the same things as before.
10. Success, but close to not making it. Again I was on the 3rd line on the tree leaf before starting. What’s different this time is that I inadvertently went left upon jumping off of cappy and then corrected course to the right when I did the arial cap jump.
11. Died. Hit the edge like before. I was just past the 3rd line on the tree leaf before starting.
12. Died. I threw cappy too far to the left before trying to run onto cappy. Missed it completely. Fell into the lake.
13. Died. Hit the edge just like in trials 6, 9, and 11. I was on the 3rd line on the tree leaf before starting. I don’t know what I did differently.
14. Died. I tried starting from the 4th ring on the tree leaf. That resulted in not being able to do the arial cap jump.
15. Success. I tried starting from just before the 3rd line on the tree leaf.
16. Success. This time I started between the 3rd line and the 4th line on the tree leaf and I aimed myself towards where I wanted to end up on the other end of the lake. This meant that I was not exactly facing in the same direction as the direction of the leaf. I was slight aimed to the right of the direction of the leaf.
17. Success. I did the same as above.
18. Success. I did the same as above.
19. Success. I did the same as above.
20. Success. I did the same as above.
21. Success. I did the same as above. I can tell that I landing on the ledge further away from the edge than in all previous trials.
22. Success. I did the same as above, though I was closer to the edge than in than above.
23. Success. I did the same as above, though I veered left a bit and landed on the left part of the ledge which was further away than the right part of the ledge. So I was closer to failing than in the above trials.
24. Success. I veered left again, but corrected course midair and landed on the right side of the ledge.
25. Died. Something seemed off when I ran onto cappy. Not sure what happened. My guess is that when I throw out cappy, I was aimed to the left of where I should have been aiming.
26. Died. Same as above.
27. Success.
28. Success.
29. Died. Same as 26.
30. Success.
My success rate increased. For trials 16 through 30, I was doing the same thing as described in #16.
Timed runs Lost kingdom
4:13
5:12
4:04
4:35
Timed runs Lost kingdom #2
8:19
- died so many times just trying to get the moon on the tree branch. mostly I kept jumping over it.
- During this series of repeated deaths, I forgot where I was going and went the wrong direction. I’ve never done that before.
6:16
- Vulture got me.
- I accidentally got a check point and forgot about it. So when I got the last moon from the cage, I died intentionally thinking I’d respawn in front of Odyssey, but instead I respawned at the checkpoint.
4:21
- Died again trying to get the moon on the tree branch. I’m gonna practice this part alone a bunch.
- Also died while trying to get the moon under the bridge.
So I practiced getting the moon on the tree branch. I figured out exactly what I should do to have the least chance of dying. I know exactly where to stand and what to do. I picked something that requires no adjustments while in the air, compared to my usual movements that I do in the air. First I ground pound jump, then cap throw, then dive onto cappy, and then arial cap jump.
> - I accidentally got a check point and forgot about it. So when I got the last moon from the cage, I died intentionally thinking I’d respawn in front of Odyssey, but instead I respawned at the checkpoint.
Does the vulture get your hat instantly or can you warp to the Odyssey at that point?
Timed runs Lost kingdom #3
5:34
- I did something new this time that I shouldn’t have done. It resulted in a death. I didn’t have a good idea that it was going to work. It was a case of trying to save a tiny bit of time by not turning the camera. So I deviated from my stated plan of “going slow”.
- My solution for not messing up the moon on the tree branch worked like a charm.
3:01
- My solution re tree branch failed. I did get the moon, but instead of landing on the branch, I fell to the lava. I’m going to practice this again and figure out a new solution.
Ok I figured out 2 sub-solutions for the moon on the tree branch.
1- I can hold forward upon getting the moon so that when I regain control of Mario, I move towards the branch more. That puts me on the branch instead of falling down to the lava.
2- if for whatever reason I don’t make it on the branch, I can throw cappy and dive onto it and make it to land.
More timed runs:
6:10
- My new solution re tree branch worked.
- I fell on to a little platform instead of the lava, which triggers clepto. So that wasted more time than dying would have.
- I died a ton of times just trying to get the moon under the bridge. I noticed something that I was doing that I think I wasn’t doing before when I practiced this. I’m pressing forward while trying to fall down beside the bridge, which causes me to do the wall slide. The wall slide messes with the cap throw and dive. Once I figured that out, I was able to do it right.
3:49
- My new solution failed twice. Once it failed despite holding forward before regaining control of Mario.
- I died while trying to get the moon under the bridge. I didn’t make the wall sliding mistake but I made a different mistake. I’m not exactly sure how it happened but the mistake resulted in doing a wall jump away from the bridge. I’m not clear on this but if I did a wall jump, I think that means I actually was wall sliding.
I think I should practice the moon on the branch and the moon under the bridge again.
#15009
I don't understand your question. the only interpretation I can think of is this: immediately after clepto is triggered, can you warp? no cuz a video plays and you don't have control of Mario. but I don't get why you're asking that or why it's connected to the text that you're replying to. so my guess is that my interpretation is wrong.
#15011 you’re unable to communicate adequately in English. Post video.
#15012 Problem appears to be on your end.
Practicing parts in Lost kingdom
1- moon on branch
2- moon under bridge normal way
3- moon under bridge if die doing #2
1
- Success. pressing forward to land on branch didn’t work, but I throw cappy and dived towards it, putting me on land instead of lava.
- Success. Same as above.
- Success
- Success
- Success
- success
2 - failing means falling in lava and dying, respawning at odyssey (assuming normal situation where I did not get a checkpoint
- Success
- Success
- Success
- Failed. When I dived towards cappy, I didn’t aim towards the moon correctly, so I missed it.
- Failed. Same as above.
- Success.
- Success.
- Success.
- Success.
3 - failing means same as in #2
- Success
- success
- Success
- Failed. Was moving too quickly and didn’t grab the ledge.
- Success
- Success
Timed runs Lost kingdom #4
2:37 (2.62)
2:39 (2.65)
No unintentionally deaths!
My goal is 2.43, which is 50% from WR level. My best run is only 8% from my goal. Or 62% from WR level.
Should I move on to next kingdom?
Video of the hardest part of Lost kingdom route
This is a video of the part of Lost kingdom route that I had the most trouble with. It involves clearing a big lava lake.
https://imgur.com/2YaK01D
Studying Metro route
I watched the first part of the guide[1] without explanations.
I’ll break the run down into sections. With each section I’ll watch the explanatory part of the guide and I’ll then I’ll try doing it. Once I don’t have big time losses anymore, I’ll move on to next section.
Section 1: start to first checkpoint flag. 3:30-3:45
- First I rewatched this section of the guide, then tried it and failed, then watched guide again and tried again. I failed but I knew why, so I tried again (without rewatching the video) and got it right. I did add an extra cap throw and dive (after the triple jump) to clear the abyss, where smallant relied only on a triple jump.
- I tried it again to see if I could replicate it. I got it right 2 times and then wrong on the 3rd time. I didn’t know exactly what I did wrong so I rewatched the guide. I thought I figured out what I did wrong and tried again. I got it right this time and I also did another thing better this time. I didn’t have to use the extra cap throw and dive — the triple jump was enough to clear the abyss.
- I tried it again and messed up the first triple jump and the 2nd triple jump. But I think I corrected course enough to not loose too much time. I did have to use the extra cap throw and dive.
- I tried it again and messed up just like last time, but also corrected course so that I didn’t lose too much time. I think I know what went wrong. I touched a wall as I was coming down from one of my jumps as part of my triple jump. That caused a wall slide, which interrupted the triple jump series.
Moving on to next section.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMTl5aVqHdA&list=PLiinoyifvFb64od8RyqPFmVqDrFwkgaa0&index=7&t=0s
Studying Metro route #2
Section 2: from first checkpoint to top of building. 3:59-5:30
- First I rewatched this section of the guide, then tried it. Tried 4 times before being able to jump on the awning at the right spot. And those 3 failures prevented me from doing the rest of this section. So I think I need to work on this individually.
Section 2.1: from first checkpoint to the awning jump.
- From watching the guide, I see that I need to do the first jump of the triple jump just before passing the fence.
- Smallant also mentions wall sliding down to the awning as a way to make sure that I’m jumping on the part of the awning that is closest to the wall.
- I tried this a few times before getting it right. On the time that I got it right, I tried to do the rest of section 2. It looked to me that things went well but I didn’t make it to the top. I must be making one or both of the mistakes that the guide explains.
- 3 more tries. 2 were good. 1 was bad. The bad one involved my 3rd jump of the triple jump resulting in hitting the awning. Not sure how that’s happening. I’m going to record video on this.
- Did 1 more try, intending to record video, and I did it right. I also did the rest of section 2 correctly. So I made it to the top of the building! See video 1 linked below.
- Did 1 more try. Did it right, but seemed awkward. Did the rest of section 2 wrong. I think I know one thing that I did wrong. I didn’t do the full spin before diving onto cappy, as the guide explains. See video 2.
- Did 1 more try. I took too long between jumps and ended up under the awning before I could do the 3rd jump of the triple jump to get on top of the awning.
- Did 2 more tries. Successful.
- Did 2 more tries. On both I didn’t start the first jump soon enough. I ended up hitting the awning on the way up. See video 3.
- Did 6 more tries. Successful on the first 5, then fail. I don’t think I jumped on the part of the awning closest to the wall. See video 4.
Videos:
1: https://imgur.com/i0wPlbU
2: https://imgur.com/5WCWHK7
3: https://imgur.com/WkStsuC
4: https://imgur.com/o8n2Dqh
Studying Metro route #3
Section 2.2: from just before the awning jump to the top of the building. 4:00-
I watched the explanatory part of this section of the guide again. Smallant explains 2 common mistakes.
- Mistake 1: throwing cappy before the peak of the awning jump
- Mistake 2: not waiting for Mario to do the full spin after throwing cappy for the first time
- Mistake 3: not jumping on the highest part of the awning
Now I’ll try it out:
- Success!
- Fail. I didn’t even get close to pressing the right buttons.
- Fail. I didn’t do a wall slide. I think that’s because I wasn’t pressing the D-stick towards the building when I should have been.
- Success
- Fail 4 times. I think I made mistake #2 each time.
- Success
- Fail. I think I made mistake #2 again.
- Success
- Fail. I don’t think I made any of the 3 mistakes. I made a video and reviewed it. I think I waited too long to throw cappy after the awning jump, resulting in not being at the peak of the jump.
- Fail. Made a video and reviewed it but I can’t tell what I’m doing wrong. So I compared my video to the guide. I’m not waiting for the entire spin (mistake 2).
- Success.
- Success.
- Fail. Reviewed video. Still making mistake 2. I need to throw cappy and then have a slight delay (waiting for full spin) before pressing ZL.
- Success 5 times consecutively.
Ready to move on to next section of Metro route.
Exposing some of my meta self-discussion about my methods for speedrunning
I wrote about some of my meta self-discussion regarding my methods for speedrunning:
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/fallible-ideas/v11RBhDBDFg/nnZnUyHfCgAJ
More meta about what methods to use next
Now that I've error-corrected my skills for sections 2.1 and 2.2 of Metro route, what should I do next? Should I move on to section 3 or should I practice doing these subsections together?
I don't have a clear idea about what to do.
I guess I'll stick to the safer way of practicing the subsections (2.1+2.2) together before moving on to section 3.
Studying Metro route #4
Working on practicing sections 2.1 and 2.2 together.
Section 2:
- Fail in section 2.2. I waiting too long to throw cappy, resulting in not being at the peak of the awning jump.
- Fail in section 2.2. I didn’t let Mario do the full spin after throwing cappy.
- Success
- Fail in section 2.2. I didn’t let Mario do the full spin after throwing cappy.
- Fail in section 2.2. I didn’t know exactly what I did wrong. When I dived towards cappy, I did not jump on cappy. I recorded the video and reviewed it. Then I played around a bit with the controls and I think I figured it out. I did not hold the cappy throw button as I was diving towards cappy.
- Success
- Success
- Success
- Success
- Fail in section 2.2. Not sure what happened. Recorded and reviewed video. At least one mistake I made was to wait too long to throw cappy, resulting in not being at the peak of the awning jump.
- Success
- Success
So my success rate for section 2 is 6/7. And I know what I did wrong in that 1/7. So I think I should move on to section 3.
Studying Metro route #5
I’ve defined section 3 to be from the top of the building to the 1st moon on the girders.
This section is explained in the guide starting at 5:31.
Guide’s explanations:
- During the long jump, wait a bit to get more distance before throwing cappy.
- Wait a moment after the cap throws to get the max height and distance from the cap jump.
- Says there is a 2nd way that is a little slower (5:50). I may do this if I have too much trouble with the first way.
Section 3 - 1st way (long jump):
- Fail. Crashed into girder. I think I long jumped too far to the right. I also think I didn’t wait long enough after the cap throw to get the max height and distance from the cap jump.
- Fail. Crashed into girder. Not sure what happened. Recorded and reviewed video. Still not sure. Compared my video with the guide and I’m still not sure. I’m going to try the 2nd way.
Section 3 - 2nd way (backflip):
- Fail. I didn’t even do the right moves. I should have rewatched the guide before trying this.
- Success. This was very easy.
- Success.
- Fail. Not sure why. I recorded and reviewed, and also compared to guide. Still don’t know.
- Fail. Same as above.
- Fail. Same as above.
After that I decided to watch my recorded videos and the guide at 0.25X speed. I played each video in small chunks, pausing to switch between videos so I could compare them more closely. I still don’t see what I’m doing wrong.
My recorded videos:
https://imgur.com/mC8puE9
https://imgur.com/GAC7A8Q
https://imgur.com/dzBWqKt
PS. I’m now thinking about my choice to do the 2nd way instead of the 1st way. If I fail doing the 1st way, I just fall onto the platform and lose a bit of time to get up to the top of the girders with good old wall jumps. If I fail doing the 2nd way, I fall into the abyss and die, losing a ton more time. I think sticking to the 1st way is better because it is a lot more error-forgiving.
I think it's good to break the level up into sections to learn separately.
Nice video about speedrunning a different mario game. WR analysis. he really knows his details.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDGmFveY2IA
Studying Metro route #6
From last session I decided to switch back to doing the 1st way (long jump) for section 3.
Here are the explanations I wrote down last time:
- During the long jump, wait a bit to get more distance before throwing cappy.
- Wait a moment after the cap throws to get the max height and distance from the cap jump.
- Says there is a 2nd way that is a little slower (5:50). I may do this if I have too much trouble with the first way.
I also rewatched the relevant part of the guide.
Section 3:
- Success
- Success
- Fail - I waited to long during the long jump before throwing cappy.
- Success
- Success
- Success
- Success
- Success
- Fail - through cappy too early during the long jump
- Fail - through cappy too late again
- Success
- Fail - watched video. Not sure
- Fail - started the long jump too early from the ledge.
- Success
- Success
- Success
Moving on to section 4. I haven't decided what that is yet.
#15331
i like how in that video he mentions that the run will be beaten, and mentions how people are wondering if its like unbeatable. it seems to be a common in speedrunning where people think a record is unbeatable when it totally is, maybe its just mostly the viewers of speedruns rather than the runners.
Studying Metro route #7
I watched the guide from the end of section 3 (at 6:25, having gotten the moon on the girders).
- I think a good endpoint for section 4 is entering the city hall building. (at 7:02)
It’s hard to tell what’s happening at around 6:25 because Mario is hidden behind a girder. Smallant says “cap jump and wall jump back onto the roof top”.
It looks like Mario first does a jump, then does what smallant says above.
After getting on the rooftop, then long jump and cap throw and dive to a distant roof top.
Guide’s Explanations (same as in section 3 for long jumping and cap throw and dive to clear a big horizontal distance):
- During the long jump, wait a bit to get more distance before throwing cappy.
- Wait a moment after the cap throws to get the max height and distance from the cap jump.
I wanted to get a visual idea of how far I should be long jumping before throwing cappy. Smallant doesn’t explain this. I watched the video a few times and it seems to me that smallant throws cappy at the moment that he is at the same vertical height as the rooftop that he’s trying to get on. [1]
Now I'll try it out.
Section 4: from the girder moon to entering the city hall building.
- Success
- Success
- Success
- Success
That was much much much easier than I thought it was going to be.
Additional note: I had to do sections 2 and 3 each time I tried section 4. I did section 3 well each time. Section 2 (specifically 2.2) I had some trouble with. But at least with section 2.2, when I do it wrong, I’m much better able to recognize specifically what I’m doing wrong because of my prior work on it.
[1] I didn’t think about this previously (in section 3 where I could have thought about the same kinda thing). Going forward, I’m going to do analysis like this where I try to figure out how to do the moves. Basically I’m looking for things that (1) smallant doesn’t explain and (2) isn’t totally clear to me. And I’m going to do this stuff while watching the guide, before actually trying any of it in the game.
Studying Metro route #8
I watched the guide from end of section 4 (7:02).
I think end of section 5 should be upon exiting the city hall building (8:45). I think I’ll need to separate this section into a few chunks too.
Section 5:
- Messed up a bunch (small time losses), including deaths (big time losses) before I was able to make it to the exit. I rewatched the relevant sections of the video to see what I’m doing wrong along the way.
- Made it to the exit. Messed up a lot less. Only died once.
- Made it to the exit without dying at all and a lot less messing up.
- Made it to the exit without dying at all, and even less messing up than last time.
- Made it to the exit without dying, but I messed up more than last time.
I’m going to continue section 5 next time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c54ILU2ylFY
> The first time this has ever been done in Mario Odyssey... (9 Captures)
Smallant1's first Mario Odyssey 9 captures run.
Studying Metro route #9
I’m continuing with section 5.
Last time I didn’t die in the last two runs, but I did mess up a lot, causing lots of small time losses.
I rewatched the relevant part of the guide.
I’m going to break this section up more.
# Section 5.1: from entering building to getting on the first moving platform
Last session I was not able to get on this platform in time before it went up. This time I was able to get it done, though I used a different method (see below). My method is easier because it does not require rolling in a straight line. With smallant’s method, if I don’t roll in a straight line, then I fall into the abyss.
My method: roll, long jump, then triple jump onto the moving platform.
# Section 5.2: from the first moving platform to the stationary platform
Method: jump, dive, triple jump, cap throw + dive, wall jump, cap throw + dive.
# Section 5.3: from the stationary platform, to the moon.
Method: backflip, wall jump, cap throw + dive onto the pole. move between wall and pole, and mash jump button (careful when moving from 1st pole to 2nd pole). From the 3rd pole jump while on the 2nd pole, move to the right and jump onto adjacent pole. Move away from the wall, jump, cap throw + dive, wall jump, cap throw + dive onto the above platform. The cap throw should open the chest. Get the moon.
# Section 5.4: from the moon to exiting the building.
Method: jump, cap throw + dive + cap jump onto the platform. Long jump, wait a while until roughly level with the next platform (while rotating D-stick to account for the camera angle rotating), then cap throw + dive onto the platform.
Sections 5.3 and 5.4 were pretty easy for me to do in the last session. Like I got 5.4 right on first try. 5.1 and 5.2 were much more difficult. 5.1 and 5.2 are much easier for me now though.
I’m going to practice all of these together on next session.
Studying Metro route #10
I did a session of section 5 runs — no reviewing the guide or looking at my notes.
I following the route pretty closely. When I messed up, I tried to recover. I found various ways of recovering from different parts of the route.
I got to the exit 14 times, not in a row. I died plenty of times. And I messed up a lot. But I’m definitely better than last session.
Studying Metro route #11
I ran section 5 tons of times. Notes on each section:
Section 5.1: I’m getting slightly better. I’m avoiding many of the mistakes that cause me to not get to the moving platform in time before it goes up. One example mistake is touching the wall during the triple jump, which stops the triple jump.
Section 5.2: I found a better method that avoids the enemies. Before this method I was often running into them.
New method: jump from the platform, cap throw + dive + cap jump, triple jump (where the cap jump gets counted as the first jump of the triple jump[1]), cap throw + dive, wall jump, cap throw + dive on to the stationary platform.
Section 5.4: I messed this up a lot. So I got lucky early on. I think I figured it out though. I need to wait until almost fully rotated before doing the cap throw + dive + cap jump. Without almost fully rotating first, it’s too easy to miss cappy when I try to jump on it.
New method: jump, cap throw + dive + cap jump onto the platform. Long jump, wait a while until roughly level with the next platform (while rotating D-stick to account for the camera angle rotating, and wait until almost fully rotated), then cap throw + dive + cap jump, then cap throw + dive onto the platform.
[1] I did not know that a cap jump gets counted as the first jump of a triple jump.
Studying Metro route #12
I ran section 5 14 of times and recorded things about each one. (Success means that I didn’t die at all. Fail means I did.)
- Fail. Died during section 5.1. I didn’t make it on to the platform and fell into the abyss instead.
- Success! No time losses.
- Success! No time losses.
- Success. Small time loss in section 5.1 and 5.2.
- Fail. Died during section 5.4. Didn’t land on cappy.
- Success. Small time loss in section 5.1 and 5.2.
- Fail. Succeeded in 5.1 but died in section 5.2.
- Success. Huge time losses, 3 times in section 5.4. I failed to land on cappy. These were huge time losses because each time I had to redo sections 5.1/5.2/5.3.
- Success. Huge time loss due to falling in section 5.4. Failed to land on cappy. On the second try, I through cappy early, before most of the camera rotation. I think that made it easier to land on cappy.
- Success. Small time loss in 5.1.
- Success. Small time loss in 5.1 and 5.2.
- Success. Small time loss in 5.1.
- Success. Huge time loss in 5.4. Small time loss when doing 5.1 time.
- Success. Small time loss in 5.1
The time loss in 5.1 always means not making it to the moving platform before it goes up on the first cycle. Usually this happens because I touch the wall during my 3rd jump of the triple jump, which starts a wall slide instead of continuing the jump. I’ve learned to turn a hard right on the 3rd jump.
The time loss in 5.2 always means hitting the wall instead of doing a wall jump. This happens because I’m too close to the wall before starting the cap throw + dive + cap jump. I’ve learned to make sure to land and jump from the right edge of the platform, and to throw cappy early during this jump so that I don’t crash into the wall when I do the cap dive.
For section 5.4, I’ve changed how I do it. Now I throw cappy + dive + cap jump earlier during the camera rotation, which makes it easier to aim at cappy (to jump on it).
Studying Metro route #13
Ran section 5 16 times (success means that I didn’t die at all. Fail means I did):
- Success. Messed up tons in 5.1 and 5.2. No trouble in the rest.
- Success. Messed up less in 5.1 and 5.2. No trouble in the rest.
- Fail. Fell in 5.4 and died. Didn’t land on cappy. 5.1 and 5.1 were bad too.
- Fail. Fell in 5.1, and died in the abyss.
- Fail. 5.1 was slow. 5.2 and 5.3 were good. Died in 5.4 due to not landing on cappy.
- Success. 5.1 was slow, but rest was good.
- Fail. 5.1 was slow, 5.3 was bad, which required that I redo 5.2 some. Then I didn’t land on cappy in 5.4.
- Success. 5.1 was slow, but the rest was good.
- Success. 5.1 and 5.4 were slow, rest was good.
- Fail. Died in 5.1 before the first jump. I need to roll only 3 times before jumping. I think I did it 4 times.
- Success. Very slow because I fell in 5.4 and had to redo from 5.1. Also I was slow in 5.1. Rest was good.
- Success. Same as above.
- Success. Slow in 5.1 and 5.2. Good in rest.
- Success. Slow in 5.1 but good in rest. I realized that I should be rotating the camera as much as possible before the long jump. That way there is less camera rotation that I have to deal with during the long jump.
- Success. Same as above.
- Success. Fell in 5.4 so had to repeat from 5.1. Slow in 5.1.
Studying Metro route #14
For this session (14 runs), fail means: dying, or falling from 5.4 even without dying. I chose this because falling from 5.4 means having to redo everything from 5.1.
- Fail. Did 5.1 correctly, but then didn’t do 5.2 right and died in the abyss. I did a regular jump instead of my normal backflip. That meant that I didn’t make it to the breakable platform, which meant that I couldn’t do the triple jump.
- Fail. Died in 5.1. Almost got a hold of the edge of the moving platform, but didn’t, and fell in the abyss.
- Fail. Slow in 5.1. Fell in 5.4 cuz didn’t land on cappy.
- Fail. 5.1 was good. Slow in 5.2. Fell in 5.4.
- Fail. Slow in 5.1. Fell in 5.4.
- Success. Slow in 5.1. Rest was good. I threw cappy + dive + cap jump earlier during the long jump than the previous 4 runs.
- Success. Good in all sections!
- Success. Good in all sections again!
- Success. Slow in 5.1. Rest good.
- Fail. Slow in 5.1. Fell in 5.4. I think I threw cappy too late during the long jump.
- Success. Slow in 5.1 and 5.2. Rest good.
- Success. Good in all sections again!
- Success. Slow in 5.1. Good in rest.
- Fail. Died in 5.1. I made it on the platform in time, by hanging on it, and instead of pressing right (which gets Mario to climb onto the platform), I pressed left (which gets Mario to let go of the ledge, causing me to fall into the abyss). I pressed left because if I fail to hang on the ledge, then I need to press left so that my momentum doesn’t throw me into the abyss.
Studying Metro route #15
For this session, success/fail is judged the same as last time.
- Success. Slow in 5.1. Fell in 5.4 but saved myself and only had to repeat from part of 5.2.
- Success. Slow in 5.4. Rest was good. Not sure what I'm doing wrong in 5.4.
- Success. Same as above.
- Success. Same as above.
- Success. Slow in 5.1 and 5.4. Rest was good. I think I figured out what I was doing wrong in 5.4. It was related to failing to do a cap jump as if cappy wasn't there. Now I know how to prevent that.
- Success. Slow in 5.1. Rest was good.
- Success. Slow in 5.2. Rest was good. 5.2 was slow because I didn’t do a good enough jump from the moving platform at the end of 5.1. I did a regular jump instead of a backflip or a regular jump with a running head start.
- Success. All good!
- Fail. Died in 5.1. I veered slightly right at the start when rolling. Correcting that resulted in getting to the moving platform a bit late, and ending up under it and falling into the abyss.
Studying Metro route #16
If I don’t mention details about a particular subsection (5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4), that means I did it right.
- Success
- Fail. Fell in 5.4 and recovered, but fell again in 5.3.
- Fail. In 5.4, crashed into the final platform. Not sure why.
- Success
- Success
- Fail. Same as last fail. I think I should be aiming left a bit at the start of the long jump.
- Fail. Fell in 5.4. Aiming left didn’t help.
- Success. Slow in 5.2. [1]
- Success. Slow in 5.2. [1]
[1] Why slow in 5.2? I’ve been succeeding in 5.1 more often now, and that often puts me in a position where I’m recovering from almost falling off the moving platform. While recovering from that, I’m often not in the same situation as I’m accustomed to for the start of 5.2. So sometimes that means failing to do the triple jump and then hitting the bottom of the moving platform that is coming down as I’m trying to pass under it.
Studying Metro route #17
- success. Slow in 5.1.
- Success. Slow in 5.1 and 5.2.
- Success.
- Success. Slow in 5.2.
- Success.
- Success.
- Success.
- Success.
- Success. Slight delay in 5.3 when I didn’t transition correctly from the first to the second pole. I dived away by accident but threw cappy and dived back to correct course.
- Success. Very slow in 5.4, resulting in having to repeat from 5.3. In 5.4, I couldn’t do the cap jump because I jumped too early after a crash.
How did I improve on 5.2? Sometimes I’m in a position where my 2nd jump of the triple jump is too far to the left, and so the 3rd jump of the triple jump is also too far to the left (too close to the approaching wall). If I’m in that position and do things as usual, I crash into the wall with the cap throw + dive + cap jump (cap jump doesn’t happen cuz I crash in wall instead). So what I figured out is that I can let go of the D-stick during the 2nd jump and 3rd jump just long enough to slow my horizontal movement so that I have enough space between the wall and the point at which I do the cap throw + dive + cap jump.
That’s 10/10. I can move on now.
Studying Metro route #18
I practiced sections 1 through 5 together. I completed it about 6 times.
I noticed that I'm more effective in section 5 than I am in the rest of the sections, despite section 5 being way harder than the rest.
I learned a better route for section 1. The old way involved clearing the abyss with a triple jump, then throwing cappy and diving to get on the plateau, then throwing cappy to get to the electric wire. I've figured out how to clear the abyss with the triple jump, then throw cappy to get to the electric wire, skipping actually landing on the plateau.
Studying Metro route #19
I practiced sections 1 through 5 together again. I completed it about 10 times.
I'm getting more consistent. I did one run that had only one small time loss.
I also played around with the tank and I learned that you can move the controller around to aim instead of only using the stick. The tank is needed for the next section to beat the boss.
Studying Metro route #20
I practiced sections 1 through 5 again and completed it about 10 times.
This time I had many runs that finished without any large time losses (e.g. due to dying) and without many small time losses.
I'm also moving a bit faster than before in some of the areas where I used to intentionally go slow to make sure I don't mess up.
#15593 Seems like good persistence and attention to detail.
Studying Metro route #21
Moving on to next section.
Section 6: 8:41-11:54 starts by exiting the city hall building and ends by beating the boss.
Section 6.1: getting to the boss fight
- Get the flag
- Get out of the electric wire early by pressing what?
Section 6.2: beating the boss
- shoot up close in general cuz shoot more, also aims easier
I watched the video as I played. I’m going to continue watching/playing until I have all of smallant’s explanations written down.
Studying Metro route #22
This time I only watched the guide and didn't play at all.
These are my new notes for section 6.2
Section 6.2: beating the boss
- Primarily use motion controls to aim
- can avoid overheating by leaving no more than 3 bullets in the air at a time. so shooting up close allows for more bullets, also aims easier.
- When a bullet hits a segment, it’ll destroy that one and one on each side of it
- once all segments are hit, then aim at head, get close, and fire as fast as you can
- If beat part quick enough, then get in corner to let boss pass. Then move to other corner and do same. Once last body segment enters wall, move left a bit so boss will enter wall behind you. Move out of way before boss hits you. Back up and aim at the middle of the building.
- When projectiles come out, try to shoot them so you don’t have to move around to avoid them.
- Aim at head and fire. Possible to shoot all segments without readjusting aim. Prioritize segments near the head first.
GISTE's documentation of his gameplay is a bit similar to this documentation:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FO5lgQdzW53oJ_Jq8-gcJ8wCHeXre8C_-xP7PtjYyC8/edit
It's a good sign about people when they write significant documentation. I too have written documentation related to Baldur's Gate, e.g.:
https://curi.us/1728-baldurs-gate-ii-playthrough-notes-part-1
There are 184 forum pages of (often long) forum posts at https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/62202/the-lob-scs-solo-challenge-and-the-tales-of-iwdification
Karl Jobst on the role of sleep on memory consolidation and skill acquisition
At 3:27 in Advanced Speedrunning Principles - Episode 2: How To Practice, Karl Jobst talks about “the role of sleep on memory consolidation and skill acquisition”. (Note: Jobst refers to research that I haven't reviewed.) Here is my transcript of that part of the video:
> Now I want to talk about sleep. We all know it is very important to get an adequate amount of sleep, as being well-rested will help with motor function, memory, and reaction speed. However, it is also very important to understand the role of sleep on memory consolidation and skill acquisition.
> The time you spend directly practicing a technique isn't the only time that counts towards developing that skill. The sleep you get *after* practicing a motor skill actually continues to solidify the technique, causing an improvement of skill even after the practice session has ended. Studies have shown an increase of 20% or more in proficiency of a motor skill after sleep, with complex skills getting the most benefit.
> So how do we apply this to our practice schedule? Well, basically, in order to learn a motor skill as efficiently as possible, we want to practice it every day, ensuring that every sleep that we have is contributing to the consolidation of that skill. If we want to spend 3 hours per week practicing a particular technique, we don't want to spend that 3 hours on a single day. It is a much better idea to split those 3 hours down into 30-minute chunks, and practice 6 days per week.
> So let's compare two different ways of structuring our practice. The first way is to spend 2 hours on day 1 practicing Technique A, then spend 2 hours on day 2 practicing Technique B. The second way is to split up these practice blocks into two parts and practice both techniques for 1 hour each day. In this example, the second method is far superior to the first. The second hour of practice for each technique has taken advantage of the sleep from the night before. The increase in proficiency will mean a higher success rate of attempts and more accurate play. The more accurate play allows for the quicker development of the correct muscle memory. Furthermore, the practice for each technique is able to utilize two nights of sleep versus one. The benefits continue to compound in this way.
> And if you're wondering “Why don't I just spend 3 hours every day practicing one technique?”, that's usually not a good idea if you have hundreds of techniques to learn in a speedrun. Time spent practicing one technique is time not spent practicing another.
> Being aware of the role of sleep after practice is also a great way to avoid frustration. You should never feel as though you need to perfect a technique during a practice session. You have to appreciate the fact that the full effects of the practice are not actualized until hours later, after a good sleep.
> Once a skill has been acquired, you no longer need to practice it every day. Maintaining your current skill level in any technique requires far less work than the process of learning it. In fact, skills that you already have acquired may not even need direct practice. Your run attempts themselves are usually enough to keep you at a competent level.
Tool for beating the "Sploosh Kaboom" minigame in Wind Waker
How We Solved the Worst Minigame in Zelda's History is a 20 minute video explaining a tool that lets you beat the "Sploosh Kaboom" minigame in *The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker*. The video was made by Linkus7, the current 100% world record holder for the game, with contributions by others, including Peter Schmidt-Nielsen, the main developer of the tool.
Sploosh Kaboom is similar to Battleship. Hidden targets are placed on a rectangular grid according to the output of a pseudo-random number generator (PRNG). The player places shots one at a time on the grid and is told after each shot whether it was a hit or a miss.
The PRNG uses the Wichmann-Hill algorithm to generate a deterministic sequence of floating-point numbers between 0 and 1. The sequence repeats after about 7 trillion numbers. If you knew exactly where the game was in the PRNG sequence when the Sploosh Kaboom targets were placed, you could figure out *where* they were placed.
At world record pace with current routing, it takes about half an hour to get to the Sploosh Kaboom minigame. Without using any info about the PRNG, the player would successfully complete the minigame only about 1/4 of the time. The other 3/4 of the time, the player would have to reset the entire game and start over. That means it would take about 2 hours on average to get past Sploosh Kaboom. However, by using the tool, a player can successfully complete the minigame every time, thereby saving 1.5 hours that would otherwise have been wasted.
Apparently, players on world record pace with current routing reach Sploosh Kaboom at around position 5.5 million (+/- 0.2 million) in the PRNG sequence. To use the tool, the player intentionally loses the first game of Sploosh Kaboom just to see where the targets were placed. The target locations are fed into the tool, which is then able to make some intelligent guesses about how far along in the PRNG sequence the game must be and to narrow down the possible target locations for the next minigame of Sploosh Kaboom. As each subsequent minigame of Sploosh Kaboom progresses, the tool also uses the result of each shot (hit or miss) to further narrow things down.
The video features animations and graphics that help explain how the tool works. The video also explains, at the end, why using this tool was deemed to be legal in Wind Waker speedruns.
#16683 Thanks for posting this. Great video. And I somehow accidentally marked the YouTube email notification for this video as read without watching the video or remembering that it existed.
It also has great video production values in *concretely useful* ways. They put effort into making *functionally useful* graphs, animations, etc. And they did it while solving hard technical problems. This is the kind of quality work that Google would be lucky to get from a coders they pay $300,000/yr (this kind of productivity and effectiveness would be maybe a top 5% result at google? guessing, idk specifically).
Also it's a great example of how speedrunning causes people to run into hard problems and encourages them to actually solve the problems instead of giving up fast. Most people aren't nearly persistent enough to care much about a problem like this, let alone solve it. Most people declare this kind of problem is impossible to solve early on (no doubt many people who have *never played the game once* have said so).
And it's a great example of how *knowledge of reality gives you power to control reality*. This excites Linkus very visibly in the clip example where he beats the game with no misses, which is a great demonstration of how powerful his approach is for making reality turn out the way he wants it to.
I also appreciated Linkus mentioning how he learned to play with one hand on the controller and one on the keyboard in order to go fast. And he's so good at this that people thought it was being automated by software instead of something he did manually.
And the video is a good example of *not* overreaching. They actually know what they're talking about (not faking) and aren't trying to add in a bunch of extra, unnecessary sophisticated or complicated stuff.
I watched a different video right before seeing this comment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl2NWuXDlhQ
> Destroying the Fabric of Society - My Truth and Social Justice
And I had those thoughts about not overreaching *for that video* from Upper Echelon Gamers. Then they applied again to the Linkus video too.
Studying Metro route #23
I read my notes (#15605) on section 6.2 and now I’m going to play it with those ideas in mind.
Trial 1: died once. I was bad at aiming. I was also bad at being aware of the oncoming projectiles so I got hit a lot.
I reread my notes and compared and contrasted it against my trial 1.
- I mostly forgot to aim with motion controls
- I mostly forgot about not leaving 3 bullets in the air at once. I’m also not sure whether or not I overheated
Trial 2: did not die. I was a bit better at aiming but not much. I was much better about being aware of the oncoming projectiles. I also shot most of them out of the air before getting near me. Some of them I let pass by me as I started to shoot the snake segments. I remember getting hit once by a projectile while being aware of it and trying to get out of it’s path. I remember being surprised that I got it because I thought I cleared it’s path.
I reread my notes and compared and contrasted it against my trial 2.
- I improved a little bit with using the motion control to aim. I often resorted to using the direction pad to aim.
- I don’t think I ever overheated. I remember being concerned about it because I was shooting a lot and I remember thinking that my shots must been hitting quick enough so that I didn’t have more than 3 bullets in the air at a time.
- I remember wanting to shoot the head but it was so far away from where my aim already was and there were other segments that were very close to my then current aim so I resorted to shooting them (low hanging fruit) instead of re-aiming towards the head.
I think I’ll do this a few more times and then I’m going to rewatch the video to see if I can figure out more things that I didn’t figure out on my first viewing prior to any trials.
Studying Metro route #24
Reread my notes for section 6.2 and my notes from last session.
Trial 3: didn’t die. I got hit by projectiles twice. My aiming with motion controls doesn’t seem to be working. I still resort a lot to aiming with the direction pad. For the last phase of projectiles, where there was only 1 more snake segment to shoot, I didn’t try to shoot the projectiles and instead I just tried to avoid them as I was focussed on shooting the snake segment.
Reread my notes and compare and contrast it against my trial 3.
- I haven’t managed to incorporate this “Possible to shoot all segments without readjusting aim.”
Trial 4: didn’t die. I didn’t get hit by projectiles but I screwed up early and got hit by the tank before I got control of it. i did get a bunch of hits in without changing aim (instead of not doing any of that previously). I had 3 phases of projectiles, which is the least I’ve managed so far (I think it goes down to 2 phases if you hit all the snake segments per phase).
Reread my notes and compare and contrast it against my trial 4.
- I’m still not using motion control to aim much but I’ve noticed that there are cases where I use the direction pad to quickly move my aim in the general area of where I want it and then I use motion control to get closer to where I want.
Next steps: Do another session like this and then then rewatch video guide. Then start doing timed runs.
Studying Metro route #25
Reread my notes for section 6.2 and my notes from previous sessions on section 6.2.
Trial 5 analysis: I didn’t die. I got hit once by projectiles. I only needed 2 phases of projectiles, meaning that I hit all the snake segments with each phase. I mostly didn’t use motion control to aim. I remember using motion control for shooting the tank. I don’t recall using motion control for any of the snake segments.
Reread my notes from last session and compare and contrast it against my trial 5.
- Problem: I still haven’t managed to incorporate this “Possible to shoot all segments without readjusting aim.” I think at most I shot two consecutive snake segments without readjusting aim. I also did not try to start by shooting the head. The snake moves much faster than I’m able to aim at it.
- Brainstorm solutions: maybe I could just wait until the snake stops moving, aim at the head and shoot it, then without changing aim, let the snake start moving again and shoot every other segment.
Trial 6 analysis: I didn’t do well shooting snake segments without changing aim. I found that my aim changes even without using motion control or the direction pad. I’m wondering if my controller is broken. Or maybe aim adjusts due to recoil from a shot. It took me 3 phases of projectiles to beat the boss. I didn’t die at all. I think I got hit 3 times with projectiles.
Reread my notes and compare and contrast it against my trial 6.
- Problem: i noticed at one point that my elbows were propped on my knees, which prevents using motion control.
- Brainstorm solutions: remember to use motion controls. Remember to avoid propping my elbows on my knees so I can be free to use motion controls.
Decide next steps: rewatch video guide to look for things I missed.
Studying Metro route #26
This time I only watched the guide[1] and didn't play at all.
These are my new notes for section 6.2
Section 6.2: beating the boss
- I noticed that the first thing smallant does is grab the tank to the right (I’ve been getting the one to the left) and then immediately start shooting the snake instead of first killing the other tank.
- Then I noticed that he used exactly 3 shots to kill all the snake segments.
- In the first cycle (after killing the snake segments), aim at the head because it doesn’t move much in this cycle.
- Immediately after the first cycle, I should be towards the right front corner.
- Move into that corner and face the opposite direction and don’t move.
- After the snake goes past, move along the wall to the corner in that direction and turn 180 degrees.
- After the snake goes past again, move left a bit so the snake will exit the wall behind you.
- Move out of the way before the snake hits the tank.
- Turn 180 degrees and aim up to the top of the building while moving backwards.
- Once the tank is aimed at the top of the building, stop moving and aim to the center of the building.
- For the 2nd cycle, after the snake stops moving, try to kill the segments near the head first as those are the ones that become invulnerable first.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMTl5aVqHdA&list=PLiinoyifvFb64od8RyqPFmVqDrFwkgaa0&index=7
Studying Metro route #27
Activity: Doing trials
Instructions and analysis:
Reread my notes from previous session.
Trial 7 analysis: I did very badly time wise. I guess that’s because I was trying out new things. i’m still bad at remembering to do motion controls. I remember saying it twice during play. I did well following the path described in my notes. I also successfully got the right tank and shot the snake without looking at the other tank or shooting it. I don’t remember paying attention to it. Maybe I killed it after completely killing the snake in the first cycle.
Reread my notes from last session and compare and contrast it against my trial 7.
- Problem: haven’t been remembering to use motion controls. context: I changed my seating position so that I can’t prop my elbows on my knees.
- Brainstorm solutions: for this next trial, try to focus on using motion controls as the main thing to focus on.
Trial 8 analysis: I tried to count how many times I shot and how many times out of those I remembered to use motion controls. i lost count but my best guess is less than 50% success rate.
Reread my notes from last session and compare and contrast it against my trial 8.
- Problem: low success rate of using motion controls when shooting.
- Brainstorm solutions: keep practicing until I’m approximately doing it 100% of the time.
Decide next steps:
1. continuing practicing until ~100% success rate of using motion controls when shooting.
2. Then do timed runs.
speedrunning sesson 1
I beat the game and I want to do speedrunning.
I watched the first kingdom of smallant smo beginner's guide.
I practiced the first kingdom a few times.
Inbetween practice runs, I rewatched parts of the guide and found something I missed and corrected it on the next run. Here's what I missed. During the boss fight, I was doing a big jump from far away rather than a small jump close-up.
I'm gonna keep practicing this kingdom for a bit until I can beat it with no big time losses (like 5 seconds) 8/10 times.
speedrunning sesson 2
I've been practicing the first kingdom.
I practiced the first kingdom 10 or so times.
I focused on the boss fight, specifically successfully jumping and hitting the boss after the first cycle of his hat throws. I got it wrong about half the time. I'm gonna start timing it if I keep getting it wrong.
I'm gonna keep practicing this kingdom until I can beat it with no big time losses (like 5 seconds) 8/10 times.
speedrunning session 3
I've still been practicing the first kingdom.
I practiced the first kingdom 5 or so times.
I watched the first kingdom of smallant smo beginner's guide again because I didn't know what to do at one point.
I don't know how to explain what I was confused about, so I'm just gonna send the part I was confused about. https://youtu.be/tIr3hPpGjm4?t=60
I'm gonna keep practicing this kingdom until I can beat it with no big time losses (like 5 seconds) 8/10 times.
#16818 How do you like it so far?
speedrunning session 4
I've still been practicing the first kingdom.
I practiced the first kingdom 7 or so times.
I'm making a lot less mistakes now. I wasn't focusing on anything in particular, though.
I'm gonna keep practicing this kingdom until I can beat it with no big time losses (like 5 seconds) 8/10 times.
speedrunning session 5
I've still been practicing the first kingdom.
I practiced it 7 times.
I was able to end the boss' hat phase before it starts 6 out of 7 of the times I played.
I'm gonna keep practicing this kingdom until I can beat it with no big time losses (like 5 seconds) 8/10 times.
speedrunning session 6
I've still been practicing the first kingdom.
I practiced it 4 times.
I didn't make a noticeable improvement. I think this is because I didn't play for a long time.
I was able to end the boss' hat phase before it starts 4 out of 4 of the times I played.
I'm gonna keep practicing this kingdom until I can beat it with no big time losses (like 5 seconds) 8/10 times.
#16892 You didn't play much for a week. Maybe you're losing interest? Maybe you should try the second kingdom instead of optimizing the first one more? Maybe it'd be more fun to play a different part of the game.
#16893 No, I just stopped using the learning experiment for a week. like when I think of the idea to do a session and if I have a feeling I don't like, I make a learning experiment where I play the game, check my feelings, and I can quit the experiment if I want. (I've never done the quoting. but sometimes I just don't do the learning experiment in the first place. that's the only issue.)
speedrunning session 7
I've still been practicing the first kingdom.
I practiced it 5 times, but 2 times I wasn't really doing speedrunning so I'm not gonna count those.
I did make an improvement. I only made a couple mistakes on the 3 times I ran.
I was able to end the boss' hat phase before it starts 2 of the 3 times I played.
I'm gonna keep practicing this kingdom until I can beat it with no big time losses (like 5 seconds) 8/10 times.
speedrunning session 8
Still practicing the first kingdom.
I practiced it 3 times.
I was doing terrible. I made so many mistakes on each round. No rounds were done well.
I wasn't able to end the hat phase before it starts whatsoever.
I'm pretty sure this was because I was sleep deprived.
I'm gonna continue practicing this kingdom until I can beat it with no big times losses (likes 5 seconds) 8/10 times.
speedrunning session 9
Still practicing the first kingdom.
I practiced it 5 times.
I did a bit worse than usual, but way better than session 8.
I was able to end the hat phase before it started 4/5 times.
I'm gonna continue practicing this kingdom until I can beat it with no big time losses (like 5 seconds) 8/10 times
speedrunning session 10/11
Session 10:
Still practicing the first kingdom.
I practiced it around 6 or 7 times.
I did better than usual. I got no big time losses 3/10 times.
I was able to end the hat phase before it started the entire time.
I'm gonna continue practicing this kingdom until I can beat it with no big times losses (like 5 seconds) 8/10 times.
Session 11:
Still practicing the first kingdom.
I practiced it 3 times.
I did worse than usual, but nothing worse than how I did on session 8.
I stopped early because I felt tired and I planned to continue speedrunning later in the day but something got in the way.
I'm gonna continue practicing this kingdom until I can beat it with no big time losses (like 5 seconds) 8/10 times.
p.s. i stopped playing for a few weeks cuz i was sick
#16932 I think you're probably aiming too high. You don't need to get it pretty perfect yet. You can get it pretty good (like no 15s time losses) for now and learn some new stages.
It's easier to optimize this stage, and get it more perfect, after you have more practice on other stages.
#16934 If I have too much trouble with this stage then I'll try what you suggested and do the other kingdoms, but for now I'm gonna continue practicing the first kingdom.
speedrunning session 12
Still practicing the first kingdom.
I practiced it 4 or 5 times.
I did around average.
I was able to end the hat phase before it started 4/5 times (or 3/4 times).
I beat the kingdom 3/5 (or 3/4) times with no big time losses.
I'm gonna continue practicing this kingdom until I can beat it with no big time losses (like 5 seconds) 8/10 times.
speedrunning session 13
Still practicing the first kingdom,
I practiced it 6 or 7 times.
I did better than usual.
I was able to end the hat phase before it started 5/6 (or 6/7) times.
I beat the kingdom 5/6 (or 6/7) times with no big time losses.
I'm gonna continue practicing this kingdom until I can beat it with no big time losses (like 5 seconds) 8/10 times.